"But most of the time I've had to resign myself to the fact that people who are not trans will never get it. Why should they?"

Good question, Jenny.

"They've never had to think about what gender they are. If you're not trans, you're free from thinking about what gender you are in the same way that white people in America are generally free from having to think about what race they are."

Bad Answer.

By happenstance, this turned out to be transgender week for me. Surfing channels Sunday I happened upon “My Female Body,” a transgender doc from BBC America. Yesterday “Princesa,” a transgender flick from Italy, arrived via Netflix. And whatayaknow, this morning I open my Salon to read this piece. I take it as a prompt from God that it’s time for me to comment on a subject that I haven’t had much cause to think about throughout my life, being white, hetero, and male and all, which basically makes me incapable of empathy for any other living creature on earth. But I must say that I’ve been able to overcome somewhat my moral, emotional and spiritual obtuseness this week and reach a bit of enlightenment on the subject and if I can be so bold at least a tincture of sympathy for folks born into this dilemma. This vein of empathy has been open so wide in fact that today I even achieved a level of understanding and feeling for Michael Jackson’s hideous assault on his face after reading how his father tormented him about his nose all through his childhood.

So dizzy am I on the vapors of empathy in fact that I’m going to spend the rest of the day walking in the shoes of others whose life experiences differ radically from mine---American-hating Jihadists, philandering Republican politicians, asshole New York Yankee fans. I think this is something this infinitely blessed white boy can do. I really do.

The question for you, Jenny, is can you ever work up as much compassion for everyone who is not you, including the girls you dated and dumped, the boys who know all the names of the NFL teams but never learned to make risotto, and all the savvy pop culture consumers who’ve seen that two-girls-talking-side-by-side-in-the-bathroom-stalls scene enough times to find it utterly trite?

"...by stark contrast, the tired right-wing grievance about The Liberal Media is not just permitted but welcomed; Bill Kristol...Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, Bill Bennett -- are routinely heard in the very venues they attack..."

Elite liberal media figures flatter themselves with their delusional self-image as warriors defending to the death the views of those they disagree with. They believe they're impressing the bullies with how open minded they are when what they're really doing is opening themselves up to more contempt. Sadly I think Obama has more than a touch of this liberal vanity himself.

(Arianna, on the other hand, may be the personification of old fashioned vanity, but not this kind. Froomkin should be safe with her.)

I saw it during a college film series in Jean Genet's 1950 "Un Chant d'Amour," and it made me think to myself, "You're not in Thompsonville anymore."

Clearly these numerous recollections prove that full frontal nudity is not as rare as the writers believe...and surely their standards for what makes for a memorable dong appearance are rather limp. For sheer star power, for instance, how do you beat DeNiro and Depardieu's dueling banjos in Bertolucci's 1900?

Glenn, if you've taken on breaking down Morning Joe, you truly are the most heroic journalist since I.F.Stone. Though I stopped watching the show months ago, this strikes me as a perfect deconstruction (though Mika self referentially using the word "reporting" sounds fresh and daring). However, to be fair I've seen Lawrwence O'Donnell, David Corn, Ron Suskind and others show up on MSNBC during its Liberal Hour making all the right noises about the need for these investigations. I doubt what you're describing is so much a failure of media responsibility as it is the success of branding and positioning as the driving force in broadcast news. Want the establishment side? Watch in the morning. Want the progressive side? Watch in the evening. For the producers of these shows it's no different than programming MTV and VH1. Journalism has little to do with it.

I tend to dig deeper into the matter of Mika's dad calling out Joe for superficiality. I think if we could get Zbig on a couch we'd learn that what he was doing there was projecting his innermost feelings/fears about his daughter onto hapless Joe...a case of what the Freudians among us might term the pop calling the kettle a hack.

All well and good, but let's remember that the great part of Cronkite's credibility was derived from the fact that he mostly kept his powder dry. We can see his significance in two or three well chosen moments. Imagine if he had gone all Keith-O on us and bloviated his personal opinions every single night nonstop. Would any one even care or notice if one day he said, "Oh, by the way, the war is really, really bad. And that's the way it is."

Moderation in pursuit of credibility is no vice. Extremism in pursuit of ratings is no virtue.