The condescending insults offered by those who are stung by blogger criticisms betrays their real problem: they're scared to death of bloggers and the rising influence they have on the public debate. They're fearful of the direct and unafraid examination of their behavior and rhetoric that many bloggers provide, as such clear examination of them cannot be flattering to them, to say the least.

Moreover, the powerful disdain bloggers as being uncredentialed, not part of their group; bloggers are thus merely riff raff, representatives of the great unwashed...the public. The mainstream media is an old boys and girls club, where all are acquainted with or even friends of the subjects they cover, the men and women who wield power and influence in Washington. All are collegial to one another, and criticism, if offered at all, is muted and usually misses the real point. Often, the mainstream, "respectable" reporters are so close to their subjects and so enveloped by the environment within which the powerful live and work that they do not even know they betray their public trust as reporters...they simply do not see what is in front of them. As Chomsky has pointed out, mainstream reporters interiorize the prevailing views of the powerful and wealthy and thus come to see the corrupt behavior and ethos and deceptive rhetoric of the ruling elite as legitimate. This is just the way things are, they think, and they are simply incapable of understanding the criticisms offered by engaged citizens and bloggers. They have been mentally colonized by their masters.

To be sure, there are many irresponsible and scurrilous bloggers, but these are easily ignored and do not necessarily enjoy much real influence in the public debate. The greater visibility a blogger gains, the more easily and swiftly his or her views may be examined for intellectual rigor and basis in reported fact. It is the independent voices of responsible, thoughtful, and attentive citizens, scrupulous and ethical and unafraid, who terrify and thus elicit disdain and vilification from the ruling class.

As a couple of others here have suggested, the purpose of keeping secret news of civilian deaths in our terror war, or photos of torture, or any other unpleasantness that may otherwise come to light, is hardly to maintain the "safety of our troops" by preventing inflammation of anti-American sentiment abroad, particularly in those countries where our depredations are already well-known and ongoing.

The sole purpose of this secrecy is to keep the American public in the dark and placated as to the horrendous realities of our wars abroad. If enough Americans were enlightened as to the misery and bloodshed we are wreaking abroad--fears the government--we would rise up in horror and demand a cessation of the wars, and accountability for the perpetrators of the worst excesses. Perhaps more frightening to Mr. Obama is that he might no longer be able to cravenly avoid doing his duty to investigate and prosecute the architects of these criminal wars. As long as most Americans have only a vague (or no) idea as to the cruel violence and terror we are inflicting abroad, Obama can sing his sweet song of "lets look forward, not backward, let's do better rather than pursue recriminatory vendettas against those who made 'well-meaning' mistakes in fighting the threats to America," and so on.

In other words, Obama could not continue his unceasing proclamation of the purest horseshit and lies. He would have to act or be revealed as complicit in the crimes, torture and murder.

Too late to avoid that, Barack.

"My only hope is that Obama's presidency will lay the tracks for a true progressive to succeed him in the White House."

To the contrary, it is much more likely that if Obama's administration fails to remedy the ills that beset us, the result of years of rape and plunder by the entrenched monied interests, he will be followed in office by a hardcore reactionary of the Bush or Cheney stripe. Jeb Bush, his father's first hope, is still eligible to serve two terms as President.

...he's talking about creating the appearance of fixing healthcare.

Fuck Obama. He will NOT enact health care reform that improves the quality of and access to health care for Americans or that produces improved care for lower cost. He has no intention of doing what must be done; he's either too spineless to offend the powers that be or too beholden to them, or both. His not very eloquent double talk is a cover for who he really is: a mediocrity, a hack, a self-serving punk with visions of grandiosity. His very insistence on getting broad support over encouraging legislation that will actually solve our problems is what will defeat his true goal: to be remembered as a great President.

He will either be forgotten as one more in a line of nonentities, or vilified for his great failure to enact real change at the historical period where there was such real change was actually a possibility.

There's no reason to be harsh on Terkoy, or even to pay him much attention. He's obviously a 14 year old boy who, in his adolescent ignorance, finds disreputable figures such as Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Rush, et al. to be somehow admirable and figures to emulate. In his dorky teenage way, he's just trying to ape their not much more intelligent or credible perversions of the facts, and, given his obvious youth, he's actually doing a pretty good job of reciting their talking points. Terkoy, as you grow up, try to learn that citing discredited sources (such as Coulter) does not suffice for making an actual argument. Hopefully, one day you'll look back on your sophmoric efforts here and you'll slap your forehead and cry out, "What a stupid ass I was!"

But you'll hopefully forgive yourself, because you'll realize that, at 14, we're all stupid asses.