...ashamed of my country.

*sigh*

For many reasons, Obama is already pretty much guaranteed to be a one-term wonder.

The right will never vote for him, period. That should be obvious.

But -- and here's the fun bit -- Obama has pretty much killed his cred with the progressives (of which I count myself a member). You can argue about how important the progressives are within the Democratic party, but all you need to do to lose an election these days is shave just a few percentage points off of the vote or the turnout. All the progressives have to do in 2012 is stay home -- intentionally or because they're disillusioned, it matters not -- and Obama simply doesn't have a chance.

So, his presidency is already doomed, unless something dramatically changes between now and then and he starts walking the walk.

Personally, I don't care about the political futures of one politician or one party. What's more important to me is -- what do we do about it? How can we have a better chance at electing a *true* progressive, instead of just a conservative in progressive clothing? We've been punked, okay. How do we keep from being punked again?

It's so hard to remain forward thinking at the moment; we had such high hopes for Obama...

I wouldn't say it's wrong, so much as I'd say it's a mistake that will gain you nothing.

Again, my point is that you can simply point out the truth (and be unflinching in sticking to the truth).

Taking this out of the abstract, the media's role should be to dig deep for the truth, NOT to act like cheerleaders for one side or the other. I may be putting words in your mouth, but I suspect we don't differ on that point.

All I was trying to point out was what I thought you were already saying -- that the axis that the media seems to use for its cheerleading is often based upon whether or not you agree with Those In Power; the people who agree or compromise with the status quo are given air time as serious, competent, rational individuals, and those who question or criticize the government are the crazy, lunatic fringe and should be dismissed out of hand.

The comparison with town hall protesters stands; these protesters are, I believe, wrong, and the media shouldn't hesitate to show this. However, it should show it by digging into the facts -- show how "end of life counseling" is NOT the same thing as a "death panel," for instance.

Instead, almost all of the coverage I've seen (aside from Fox news, which I don't watch) has been derisive on the face; these people are not to be believed -- not because they're WRONG, but because they're angry and screaming and yelling. THAT is the mistake.

Taking advantage of a flaw in how our media works when it benefits what you believe is no better than when it benefits the "other side." The correct resolution is not to take better advantage of the flaw in journalism than your opponents; rather, it is to correct the flaw.

The consensus is, we should mock and shout down protesters we disagree with, but it's just patently unfair that "our" people are mocked and shouted down?

Note: I'm not claiming the media is "balanced" (I don't think it is, but I think that editorial bias varies more by network than it is simply left-leaning or right-leaning). Nor am I buying into the myth of balance itself. I think that if you really believe strongly in something -- even as a journalist -- you should editorialize accordingly (although it would be nice to see editorial content more cleanly separated from supposed "fact" in "the news").

In essence, I'm simply repeating the old saw that the way to counter harmful or hateful speech is with more speech. If someone lies, tell the truth. Don't just shout them down or ridicule them, because that will just lead to an arms race of "who can shout the loudest" -- with truth as the first casualty of war.

It's quite possible to protest the government and be wrong -- and I think that's exactly what's going on with the teabaggers. But the media shouldn't dismiss you out of hand simply because you're protesting.

You're missing the point.

I think the town hall protesters are factually wrong, also.

But the point is that if you watch the media hubbub about the teabaggers, the fact that gets presented as damning is not that these people are factually wrong, it's that they're crrrrrrrazy! Look how loony they are, showing up and shouting!

We agree, there are no "death panels" in the proposed health care reform bill. But if I believed there were, I would damned sure be showing up and shouting too.

The problem isn't in the factual incorrectness; it's in the fact that merely protesting gets you labeled as a loony. THAT is what needs to change. Once protesters are not dismissed out of hand, then we can begin to have logical national discussions about the CONTENT of the protests. Those discussions would have (a) very quickly put to rest the ridiculous "death panel" claims and (b) very quickly shown that there was substance to the political manipulation of terror alerts.

But my point is just a slight tweak on what Glenn was saying; the media implicitly dismisses out-of-hand anyone who protests the government, regardless of the veracity of their claims. All I'm adding to Glenn's article is that the dismissal seems to be less dependent upon your political leaning, and more dependent upon the simple fact that you are protesting.