Glenn, you've conflated the ability of bloggers to do legitimate reporting with the revelations of whistle-blowers, the ACLU and the like. Also, your interest is largely federal coverage, not state or local, where bloggers have yet to catch up to the abilities of local newspapers -- and I believe never will.

As newspapers struggle to survive, most bloggers would love to dig their graves (not necessarily you, Glenn). Have any of those bloggers covered zoning or planning board meetings, which are boring on the surface but where a lot of problems with regional growth begin? I can answer for them: No. And because bloggers and so-called "citizen journalists" don't and won't cover such un-sexy topics, what institution is going to cover the fundamental functions of a democracy? The scary part is as newspapers shrink, many of those fundamental government functions are not being covered at all, clearing the way for the unscrupulous to engage in any number of underhanded actions without oversight.

Even if bloggers' criticism of newspaper coverage is legitimate (as Glenn's almost always is), bloggers should still support newspapers and help fight newsroom downsizing. Newspapers remain the best newsgathering operations around despite their coverage gaps and flaws, but they are dying. It is in everyone's interests that newspapers do not shrink to the point of irrelevance or death.

The most despicable, vile pack of craven zealots ...

Considering what we already know today about their utterly heinous behavior, it's frightening to ponder what we'll find out about in the years to come -- although there is much we will never know since they'll either destroy most records or mark them classified forever.

On climate change alone we can be sure future generations will rue this presidency even more than we do today.

It takes all of about 1.5 seconds to stop and think that Hillary's and Obama's positions aren't all that far off, while Hillary's and McCain's positions are about 180 degrees apart.

If you haven't come into the Obama tent yet, why??? Is your bitterness so great that you would risk (or would rather have) a president who would follow through on so much that is horrible, disgraceful and anti-American that Bush has imposed? Can we afford a president who would appoint another Supreme Court justice like Alito or Roberts? Can we afford a president who would continue domestic spying? Can we afford a president who has no good ideas to fix our health care disaster? Can we afford a president who would be content to leave our stressed-out military in Iraq and tolerate more casualties?

Most importantly for the long term, can we afford to simply piss away another four years of inaction on climate change???

I voted for Hillary in my Virginia primary, and I am not only proud to vote for Obama, I am excited by the prospect. Obama won't be another FDR (there is noone today with that kind of political courage) but he will be much closer, and in these grave times, we really need him. McCain, on the other hand, will be able to do a great impression of hands-off Hoover.

As a red-blooded male bleeding heart I have to admit I've been really attracted to Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- it's that combo of being very attractive and an incredibly smart, articulate progressive voice! Oh Debbie, let's run away for an afternoon, just you and I, and talk about the civil rights subcommittee!

Here she is in May '06 making a good point on the House floor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0tJ5fjTMfE

You've been my daily go-to sports columnist for great, no-bullshit analysis on my wavelength. Before I go to Deadspin or dead-tree writers, I have to see what King Kaufman has to say.

It feels a little silly to want to add this little missing perspective to Ms. Traister's good, valid observations about daytime TV's role in the presidential campaign, so consider this just a digression.

Daytime game shows weren't all just banal plugola, and deserve to share credit for pushing the TV envelope. While shows like "Password" and Art Fleming's "Jeopardy!" encouraged smarts, the most popular show on daytime TV in the '70s was just about the most risque show on any time of day: "Match Game."

Once "Match Game" hit on its winning formula of clever fill-in-the-blank questions heavy with hilarious double-entendres, there seemed to be an unwritten rule: throw out the first answer that comes to mind, because that would be too obscene for TV, and come up with a way to work around '70s censorship. Even George Carlin used to cite "Match Game" in his act as he complained about the FCC's ban on his "seven dirty words," asking why was it OK for "Match Game" to say "boobs" on TV but he couldn't say "tits," yet we all know they mean the same thing?

"Match Game" also had a progressive attitude for the time toward popular (and clearly gay) panel regular Charles Nelson Reilly. Unlike Paul Lynde on "Hollywood Squares," Charles didn't pretend to be someone he wasn't. It was a little like "don't ask, don't tell," with occasional funny asides from the other panelists and host Gene Rayburn that actually reflected how much they all liked him. Even Charles would mock himself a bit by putting on a deep "macho" voice at times.

"Match Game" was on at 3:30 ET for much of its run, and as such had a large after-school audience it influenced. This included kids with budding sarcastic cynical attitudes and humor, including this writer, the same audience that read "Mad" magazine and collected "Wacky Packages" -- and "Match Game's" head writer also was a primary writer for "Mad."