In 2000, when the boys and girls on the bus tilted the playing field against Gore ("he invented the Internet!" "now he sighs, now he lies") and in favor of Bush, there was no blogosphere, and their dishonest narrative spun without a counterweight.

In 2004, when the boys and girls on the bus tilted the playing field against Kerry ("swift boats!" "green tea!" "wind surfing!") and in favor of Bush, there was a blogosphere, but it was embryonic, and not yet effective.

Now, in 2008, we can see the same nonsense coming from a mile away. We are not yet strong enough to fully balance the nonsense the mainstream excretes, but we can, if we coordinate, exert some influence. And that task -- persuading when possible, humiliating when necessary -- must become our highest priority.

They will do it again if we let them. And no one else is going to do anything about it.

The fact that Mukasey's beliefs (e.g., that the DOJ gets to decide what the law is, that the President can re-write the law at will, etc.) do not in and of themselves destroy his credibility is central to the gangrene that has consumed Washington. The sad fact is that making Bush officials the object of non-stop ridicule seems to be the only way of neutering them. An appearance before Conyers should yield many weeks of ammunition.

Congrats and thanks, Glenn, for launching this issue and thereby pushing Mukasey down the Gonzales path of irrelevance. If we can keep the pressure on, this pathetic apparatchik will soon join Abu in Jon Stewart's pantheon of stooges.

Then who will they get to commit professional sepuku by replacing him?

I can't shake the feeling that you have written this post before, Glenn. That isn't a criticism, but a further indictment of those you criticize -- this pathetic state of affairs has been our status quo for some time.

And when I thought about my reaction, I realized that I already said it here in a comment last December:

As usual, dead-on and depressing. But the most striking thing about the sorry place we have reached is only implied in your post.

You write [in your post "The Lawless Surveillance State"]:

This doesn't mean there is a complete erosion of freedom equal to all of those societies. Free speech still basically thrives; we elect our leaders; and individuals retain a fair amount of autonomy in their personal choices.

In the bogeyman totalitarian states of yore, the kind of wholesale dismantling of the rule of law that took place would have been impossible absent the muzzling of the intelligentsia. Stalin and Hitler and Mao had to jail or threaten to jail folks like you in order to bully everyone into obedience.

I would argue that we are now in a far more dangerous place: they don't have to threaten any of us, because hoi polloi are so opiated by Britney's knickers and America's Next Top Bimbo and the other inanity that makes up our REAL national dialog that the theft of our Constitution (and of fair elections) can be pulled off in broad daylight.

In short, the dazzling feat the Bush team has accomplished is the creation of an autocracy in which free speech exists, but is without consequence. We shout and scream and beg our fellow citizens to give a damn about the end of the rule of law -- actions that would have sent us all to the Gulag or worse in past surveillance states. But they need not bother with jailing you or any of the rest of us. They can let us pull the fire alarm, because they have so numbed and dumbed down the nation that they are confident that no one will respond.

In the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451, books had to be burned. In ours, they can be safely ignored, because the citizenry is functionally (and willfully) illiterate.

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/12/16/telecoms/permalink/9b6b45f8a7e211f36374a9dcd627ec30.html

I despise the nonsense that spews from the mainstream as much as you do. But I think we have to come to grips with the fact that we are harshing America's mellow. I've seen reports that 50% of American households now have broadband (the % who have some form of Internet access is far higher). That means that at least 100 million adults could, with a click of their fingers, find out about what is going on if they cared to do so. Howard Kurtz doesn't block Salon from America's browsers. It's just that... well, there's a Branjelina special on!

Please keep on keeping on. I will do the same. But at times like this I can't help feeling we are the orchestra playing "Nearer My God to Thee" as, one by one, the compartments flood.

Alas, I don't think it will work. Not that they are not as vain as you posit, of course. The problem is that they have all mastered one investigative skill, at least: immediately upon picking up any book about journalism or politics, the first each reporter will do is look for him or herself in the index. Then one of two things will happen: (A) she will not see her name, in which case the book is put down and never opened again; or (B) he does find his name, turns to the page where he is mentioned, realizes he is being criticized -- in which case the book is put down and never opened again.

Sorry.