I just finished writing on another blog exactly what you have said. Well, not exactly. You are definitely more eloquent and have provided links, and details.

I spent a decent part of the primaries debating with some Obama supporters who insisted that Hillary was so polarizing, we would continue with the same old hate she and Bill somehow created amongst the right, while Obama would magically transform and unify America.

I wish they had been right about the latter. But this hate did not start with the Clintons though it reached somewhat of a crescendo during that administration. I remember Limbaugh all through the 80s promoting the hate for the left, for liberals for their so called anti American attitudes. Having come of age in the sixties, the Dick Cheney's, the W's, the Limbaugh types were the guys screaming at the dirty f**king hippies, calling us America haters. I remember one time one of those creepy types hitting on a friend and I and when we weren't interested calling us lesbian freaks and some other names. Those types, the white anglo saxon males who felt entitled, were angry. They still are. They resent working people, women, minorities, anyone who is s threat to their dominance.

It's sad that so many young Obama folks did not read their history. Obama is a good guy but like some of his followers I believe he has underestimated the depth of hate and loathing that these people have for anyone or anything not like themselves.

the encounter with Klein. Hilarious and sad at the same time. For years I have wondered if it was just me. Klein, Todd, Gregory and a few others have always come off as elitists more interested in their own fame, their own bank accounts and seem to need their egos stroked 24/7. They seem to have a "gotcha" mentality starting back in the Clinton era with Klein.

I came of age during Watergate. I was hooked to the reporting, then the televised trials. I was a young adult and felt this was really democracy, i.e. making sure no one, not the president, not his aides, not anyone in government was above the law.

It was heartbreaking in the 1980s when I watched as reporters worshipped at the altar of Reagan and while small groups of patriots were outraged at the horrendous goings on around our world, in Nicaragua, in Chile, the press was basically silent. I knew then we were headed down the wrong road. I did not know how much worse it could get. Now I am living it as the likes of Klein and friends are treated as serious pundits while people like you, Matt Taibbi, Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman are attacked, ignored and painted as extremists.

I am frightened for us all and frightened that we may never get our democracy back. The oligarchy we live in rewards the Kleins of the world because he does their bidding.

giggled over Hillary's "tantrum" as sexist Ed called it, like boys in a locker room. Yes, I know Ed calls himself a liberal. Clearly he is proof that sexism is thriving in the ranks of liberal males, the media.

Interestingly, in the same sentence where he "teased" about Hillary's tantrum, he also asked "what made the normally calm Tiger Woods" lose his cool.

So the male lost his cool and it was something that someone else did or said that caused it.

But the female had a "tantrum"....like a toddler does.

And then the supposedly liberal Schultz gave an opening to a wingnut, Tom Tancredo, so they both could trash a woman together....how bonding of them.

that this is the America of "Max Headroom:20 minutes into the Future."

For people familiar with the series, it was a scifi about a time when the corporate entities controlled everything using Network 23. The shows spun people; did reality television pitting neighborhoods against each other...and subliminal commercials.

When I see how easily citizens are being manipulated by the pundit class; by corporations who own the airwaves, I realize I have arrived to that that future.

I too would be proud if I got on a cover like that. Maybe you can get the president to sign your framed copy. I think it is an honor to be trashed by the likes of Limbaugh. To me that says you must be doing a lot right and are on the right side of human decency and morality.

I grew up watching Cronkite. I started teaching in 1967. I told my students then that the independent press, they were the guardians of democracy. I never imagined that halfway through my career I had to stop saying that.

I watched a PBS program where David Gregory, Helen Thomas, Dan Rather and a few others were on a panel discussing the press and the lead up to the war. Helen spoke the truth: she regretted the failure of the press corps to ask the tough questions and challenge the administration on the run up. Obnoxious, full of himself, David Gregory, told her she was wrong..... he's such a pathetic tool.

So was Russert. While I felt sympathy for his family, I was turned off by the millionaire pundit class' bloviating about his and their work.

Cronkite worked FOR THE PEOPLE. Today's press corps is all about the money, the power, the celebrity and their ability to socialize with the power brokers. It scares me for our democracy that so few of you (Glen, Joan, Bill Moyers, The Nation, and a few others) are left to be the guardians of our democracy and challenge the power brokers.