Glenn,

I think your explanation of the problem behind such outrages (Manichean delusion) is dead-on. The fact that what Good America DOES is so close to what Evil Libya does, and the fact that the MSM studiously ignores those parallels, is ample evidence, though I don't think any more evidence is required by now.

So your diagnosis is dead-on, I think. The question now furrowing my brow is this: what, if anything, can be done? The disease is clear, but the patient is resolutely immune to the treatment. Pointing out that they are factually wrong doesn't seem to help; facts are utterly ignored. Throwing their hypocrisy in their faces is ineffective; they laugh at the very concept of logical consistency. As you saw in your Cato appearance, they feel free to parse, ignore and revise, and are deaf to even threshold-of-pain cognitive dissonance.

Until recently, I dared to dream that we could reason our way back from the abyss. But the Democratic collapse on FISA last week has nearly extinguished my willingness to believe America can find its way back to the light. If our majority opposition party can ignore everything that is known about the malfeasance, incompetence and illegality of Bush, Cheney and Gonzales and STILL ratify and authorize their past and future wrongdoing, it is no longer clear to me that logic, facts and legal arguments can still have any effect at all.

Does what we do really matter? Have we made a meaningful difference? I have seen a number of prominent bloggers begin to discuss similar existential questions recently in the face of events that seem utterly immune to the laws we think should govern the political universe. The assumption that proving the Administration and its enablers wrong will force them to change paths or tactics seems almost utopian now.

So as compelling as your evidence of the problem is, I would sure like to hear your thoughts on how to DO something.

I agree that even the most influential bloggers among us (and surely that now means Glenn) reach only a small percentage of the population. You seem to see that as a cause for some optimism; I wish I could, but I can't. I guess the heart of my existential dread is that, even if the numbers are slowly increasing, the game will be over long before those numbers are big enough to truly matter (in the avert-disaster sense). Our ontological/tautological cul de sac is that those who need to understand will not, perhaps can not, do so. The illogical cannot be moved with logic. We are arguing about colors in an attempt to persuade the blind.

Sorry to be a buzz-kill, but to me this is really nub of our desperate situation.

I want to be encouraged by the progress you have made. One of the more interesting things I have noticed recently was the aside from Jay Carney @ YKos near the end of the panel you and he did in which he (as I interpreted it) hinted that YOU should be a columnist for Time Magazine. And when that happens, I will pop a bottle of champagne.

You have been getting remarkable access lately, and I am very happy to hear that "serious" journalists read your work and talk with you. And I am happy to see that, unlike certain other formerly effective bloggers, you have not retracted your claws in the slightest despite your migration into the belly of the beast.

What I assume is now happening, though (and please tell me if my inference is wrong) is that the pain-minimizing path for these clowns is now to continue to perform their stenographic duties, then endure your knuckle-wrapping, ad infinitum. Doing their jobs would please you (and us), but would also (a) require actual work, (b) quickly cause expulsion from the steno pool and, in short order (c) result in a one-way ticket to palooka-ville.

So if you see actual changes in the work of the specific wretches you pillory here, I would love to hear more about it. You have been admirable in the way in which you have avoided blowing your own horn, but I think sharing successes with us would be a real morale booster. And I, for one, could definitely use a boost in my morale.

You put professional journalists to shame.

First, like a lawyer dismantling a hostile witness on cross, you get O'Hanlon to undermine every point underlying the neocon storyline surrounding his Potemkin visit. (Oh, that's right -- you are a lawyer.)

Second, you indirectly refute the underlying justification for the bootlicking that passes for journalism in the MSM by using your access not to kiss your source's ass, but to nail it. O'Hanlon knew you would go after him, and he talked to you anyway -- imagine that. Telling the truth doesn't cause the sky to fall.

And finally, you justified my own faith that there is someone out there who will dig for the truth and damn the torpedoes, and that bloggers are damn near the only ones left who think that is an important job.

Between this, the Kos op-ed in the Post, and Markos' appearance on Meet the Press, I am a little more optimistic than I was a few days ago.

You are doing important work, and doing it well. Thank you.