But we don't anymore. At least not the mainstream that reaches the majority through the boob tube that's affixed directly to its brains.

Look, Homeland Security is a joke for two closely related reasons. One, it's very unlikely that terrorists are going to blow up a chemical plant. The warmongers don't want you to know that because your fear helps them monger war and enrich the MIC. 9/11 was an anomaly; most Muslims are peaceful people and the few extremists (and yes, numerically they are very few) are very limited in what they can accomplish. So the chemical industry doesn't want to spend all that money on safety; they know it's not a smart bet. And second, the warmongers and the Military Industrial Complex, rock bottom, wouldn't mind another devastating attack anyway, should one come. Look what 9/11 did for them, transforming a soon-to-be one-term administration into heaven on Earth for the rich, the connected and, yes, the MIC.

The great tragedy of our age is mega-corporate ownership of the media. Congress and the Supreme court destroyed the movie studios' system of "vertical integration" in the first half of the last century; it's not too late to unravel "vertical integration" of the media but it's going to be considerably harder since the media can make or break a politician. It doesn't look good for the home team, but if enough people wake up and demand a change, just maybe...

Great point. Are you gonna call George and say it to him? I'm going to call Warner and Hagel. Probably pointless to call Leiberman. Who else is on the fence, suggestions?

Got live bodies at Voinovich, Warner and Hagel's offices and had my say. FWIW...

Glenn, you made one reference to having disliked a full reading of Friedman's columns, kind of out of the blue, and then didn't elaborate. Or if you did, I missed it. Certainly, there is much to take issue with where TF is concerned, but can you tell us why you would find him as objectionable as Bootlicking Broder -- or point me to the place where you have already done so?

Personally I think TF is trying to get it right, where Broder is on auto-pilot, having checked his brains at the door long ago.

I read Glenn's malediction of Friedman and can't say he's entirely wrong on the elements of Friedman's writings he chose to criticize. Of course, he isn't; Friedman thought a certain kind of invasion would have a good outcome and kept rooting for it long after it had clearly been turned into a disaster by incompetent execution that was never very likely to be competent. But I think Friedman brought a different sensibility to the pre- and post-war discussion having written so extensively and insightfully on the Muslim world and the Middle East prior to 9/11. He saw possibilities for hope in a part of the world that had been left behind -- way behind, dangerously so -- and thus saw the invasion as something more than just a chance to beat up on Saddam Hussein. I just don't see how anyone can dismiss a book like "Longitudes and Attitudes" as the bloviations of a self-aggrandizing asshole. No matter how much we hate the war, there was a time when it could have gone differently (try taking Paul Bremer out of the equation and see where you get); it's unfair to tar everyone who ever said anything favorable about the idea of regime change and -- gasp! -- bringing democracy to the benighted Middle East with exactly the same brush. Are Condoleeza Rice, Charles Krauthammer or John McCain writing extensively and urgently on exactly what globalization is and the need to get off oil?

I've read Glenn and will continue to. I have also read Tom Friedman and will continue to.

I can't see the military, for all their training to obey orders from above, pulling the trigger on a bombing of Iran. Obviously, Bush/Cheney would love it if Iran could be goaded into doing something seriously provocative, like the Japanese so suicidally did at Pearl Harbor. Then the military would have to react. But lacking that, who's going to order the first jet off a carrier deck?

And listen, even if the Harry Reid couldn't get his sixty votes, the White House (minus Bush, who knows nothing) knows how hard it was to keep the defections down to 17. They know damn well their authority has been weakened. Neither Bush nor Cheney can just pick up the phone and start a war anymore.