Smith's apology continues with the gossip, by characterizing Edwards' disease. Metatstic breast cancer is serious business, but women can live a long time with it, depending on how much and where it has spread. Both Smith and/or his source seem to reading a lot into this from what Smith writes. From ithe info Edwards has given, his wife has been told it can be controlled and she could have a long life, even though it may mean repeated courses of chemo, radiation or even surgery.

I seem to recall that Politico's mission was supposed to include pulling back the curtain on how the political process works. They have clearly done this with respect to political journalism--you go with a single source concerning a subject for which you have no technical knowledge. I doubt that the source was Elizabeth Edwards' oncologist and I doubt that Smith and his cronies know anything about cancer. Further, the source probably shared idle speculation or perhaps the topic that the Edwards were discussing rather than the outcome of that discussion. Either way, it's sloppy and the "apology" is as cheap as it is needed.

Harris seems to avoid dealing with the problem of dealing with outlets that are part of a clear political machine or at least a set of interlocking organizations with a clear political agenda. If he wants integrity, he would second guess how his work could be unintentiallly used by Druge & Co (or a lefty like David Corn, for that matter) for purposes that are distoring.

Glenn's obeservation about the Republican domination of politics is instructive. The real stories have come from people whose sources are not a part of that process. Sy Hersh, Dana Priest, and Tom Ricks come to mind. Ricks is very enthusiastic about us staying in Iraq for decades, so this cohort includes people who aren't exactly administration critics. At some point, the Washington press and punditry needs to admit that it's "been had" and conciously cultivate new sets of sources. As a corollary, therehas been little new blood in Washington Press corps in the last generation. I used to be abig consumer of chat shows, 15-20 years ago, and it's the same talking heads now as then. The columnists also haven't changed, although Will, Krauthammer, etc. have been phoning it in for years. Krauthammer was sometimes interesting until the '92 election cycle--then he became all about talking points. Will became a pet in the Reagan administration and has written almost nothing of value since. Clearly, the RIGHT is as ossified as the people who feed off it.

Halperin's idea that Fox is important when it reaches a small percentage of the audience and its viewers are poorly informed and extereme, relative to the rest of public opinion is pretty absurd. he also should be pandering to The Nation if influential small niches are a criterion for cultivating news outlets.

In the 70s, Castaneda's work fueled many late night bull sessions while stoned. I tried to read his stuff, but like most "cosmic conciousness", I couldn't get through it. Much like "Lord of the Rings" (also popular at the time and readable, to me, only in parody form as "Bored of the Rings"), it was part of a withdrawal into fantasy in the aftermath of the assasinations of King, RFK, etc.It doesn't surpise me that he ran a cult full of arbitrary attachments and general mindfucking. That sort of thing was popular at the time. Now those characters would be selling subprime mortgages and shooting infomercials, but the process is the same. It's sad what happened to the witches, but the moral of the story seesm to be that the well-off and well-educated are often the easist marks and no one wants to admit that they bought into something that so obviously was bullshit.

When Krauthammer plays psychiatrist in his columns (as he does here), he's usually pretty ludicrous. He hasn't had a medical license in 25 years and he clearly hasn't kept up. His claim to fame as a psychiatrist was a paper in which he and the noted academic Gerald Klerman stated the obvious (that there are forms of mania secondary to other conditions) and gave it a diagnostic label, hardly the stuff of great scientific or clinical discovery.

Laura looks ridiculous in that pic from the Embassy party. The dress looks like something you'd wear to a barbeque. The Queen looks okay there, but seems to go for silly looking hats elsewhere.

It's odd that Babs and Daddy weren't at the State dinner. Nor were any other former presidents. The guest list seemed extremely undignified And Sid forgot to mention the reporters who were invited--it's a sign of where journalistic ethics have gone. No WH reporter should have attended.

The Queen looks good compared with her feckless, inbred family. Taken together, they are a pretty good match for the Bushes. Phillip's world view is pretty authoritarian and, of course, Chuckles is about as classy as the Bush twins. Plus there's alcoholism (Elizabeth's pathetic sister and daughter. It makes sense that the Queen mother drank, too.

One would hope that a skilled retail politician like Blair would leave the field with a dignified exit. Instead, he sounds like Bush. I wonder how much more of the belicose rhetoric we will have to endure before & after his resignation becomes official. In some ways, this makes it easier for Brown to disntinguish himself from this poodle, although it also sets the stage for Brown to look weak by comparison. I wonder if this is a preview of what we'll get as Bush's time draws toward an end.