There is of course the obvious reason -- you have hurt their feelings. Your criticism of the media is utterly deserved, but they won't see it that way. You aren't a member of the club and refuse to play by the club's rules, so they won't deign to acknowledge you.

But there is another reason that just occurred to me. In their own Manichean world, the media needs a simple narrative -- a box to put you in and a reason to dismiss you. And refusing to acknowledge your books provides an elegant way to accomplish both.

"Greenwald? just a whiny blogger who is out of his depth. His media criticsm is just sour grapes because he couldn't get the serious sources of journalism to pay attention to him."

By ignoring you, they supply their rationale for ignoring you -- quite creative, actually.

It has been alluded to by a couple of previous commenters, but I think it should be made simple and explicit:

It cannot be logically true that (a) all of our opponents in Iraq are al Qaeda and (b) Iran is a major sponsor of our enemies in Iraq.

The difference between Sunni and Shia -- a simplistic, first-order distinction that should be the floor under American understanding of the mess we have made, has instead served as a ceiling above it. At least half of what the Administration says about our current and future wars of choice there is rendered absurd with that one simple tool, yet Gordon uses it as a fish would use a bicycle.

Glenn, your reference to the Miller/Iraq mea culpa should cut Gordon to the bone. But it will not. There is no longer a feedback loop at work. The very people largely responsible for creating the records of the past that we seem doomed to repeat seem incapable of studying it. Santayana now applies to those who first write history.

It may indeed have been predictable. But it still feels like a 2x4 upside the head, and a death knell.

I want to scream, but screaming accomplishes nothing. I want to put words to my fury, but the events of the past few weeks make me question the power of my words, and even yours.

We have undeniably had an effect, but I now fear it has been too subtle to matter. Maybe all of our work to reform the press has just been lipstick on a pig.

Bush and Cheney remain unimpeded by even the full-throated anger of the blogosphere. Our republic lies in ruin. Versailles applauds. There must be something more we can do.

I have never been the street-protesting type. Among other drawbacks, it seemed only to affirm the "dirty hippy" meme. But maybe the time has come. Can we translate our fury into something beyond words?

Other stories may be more important in the abstract, but this one has leverage -- you might have an ally in Hoyt, and the Times, whether it still earns its lofty perch or not, still sets the tone for much of the rest of the journalistic world. Today they parrot; others feel safe in parroting in turn. If they can be made to swear off the propaganda, many dominoes will likely follow. Many things become possible if the Times starts telling the truth.

If your excellent work accomplishes nothing else, helping to turn around the Times would be a worthwhile result for your efforts.

As you point out, Glenn, Democrats want more active oversight, not less. But if there is one thing the liberal critics of Congress and the Bush Administration agree on, it is the toothlessness of the Democratic leadership.

The maneuvering to keep Harriet Miers from so much as walking into the Capitol is breathtaking in its chutzpah, if you assume a functional Constitution. But if you assume that Congress is a functional potted palm, their move makes perfect sense. That belief obviously underlies virtually every Administration move regarding Iraq, Attorneygate, and every other go-Cheney-yourself that issues from the White House.

And that is fast becoming a widely held assumption on our side of the aisle as well.

sometimes find their nuts.

Glenn, I think you are right that, directly or indirectly, the blogosphere has something to do with this remarkable, anomalous bit of actual journalism. But that brings up a tough question: how should we react when the squirrels actually find their nuts?

My natural inclination, perhaps like yours, is continued snark. But I think we would be better served with effusive positive reinforcement. If we are too grudging in our acknowledgment when they get it (mostly) right, they will give up trying to avoid our barbs, and go back to stenography, which is both easier and pleasing to the Administration as well.

So bravo, Mr. Gordon. Keep up the good work.

The Watergate-era Congress would not, and did not, put up with this kind of defiance. And the courts moved quickly then to strike down better privilege claims than these -- within only a few weeks, IIRC.

I understand why the pre-2006 Congress acquiesced in its own nullification -- party trumped their institutional interest.

But now the Dems control, and yet they are paper tigers, content to be Constitutional cuckolds.

Do they not understand what is happening? Has Stockholm Syndrome so utterly brainwashed them that they cheer their own superfluousness? Or (and this is perhaps the darkest possibility of all) are they biding their time until they get to drive the fascist juggernaut?