Considering that journalism schools incorporate public relations into their curriculum

This was not my experience -- I obtained a degree in journalism without taking a "public relations" course. I'm not even sure one was offered. I did take two ethics courses, though, and learned more in them than in any other course.

There's a lot of grave-dancing about the death of newspapers, and much of it is misplaced. Here at Salon, Glenn Greenwald has taken the cravenness of the Washington press corps (a worthy pursuit in and of itself) and expanded it to indict traditional media as a whole, leading his acolytes to support the trashing of basic journalistic precepts, such as identifying oneself to an interview subject as a member of the press.

Journalists can't develop a source without being accused of cowtowing -- no distinction is made. We're succumbing to the paranoid belief that the only newsworthy events are those which are gathered accidently or surreptitiously -- that all officials are Zen masters of message control, and that nothing newsworthy is obtained face-to-face. I've watched my local county commission beat reporter give lie to that fallacy for years -- but what happens when my newspaper goes under? Who takes his place, and the thousands like him around the country?

We're talking about newspapers here. Try to keep up.

Consider in the current framework, for each reporter whose work is valued, how many are hopelessly connected insiders to whom 'access' is the holy grail and so for their high salaries produce nothing truly of value?

Very, very few. First, beat reporters around the country are turning out their pockets, wondering where their "high salaries" have gotten off to.

Second, do you really think that, say, David Gregory represents the typical reporter? This is the perception problem I referenced earlier -- the small pool of Washington insiders, due mostly to their second careers as TV pundits, are viewed as the norm in the industry. It's just not so.

that Coulter would choose both Mein Kampf and Zarathustra as analogues at different times in the course of the same interview. Nothing inherently wrong with Zarathustra, of course -- but that name is most commonly invoked nowadays in the context of Hitler's misappropriation of Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra. And then the reference to job discrimination against Jews, not to protect insensitive speech, but to prevent the criticism of insensitive speech.

I'm not going to be the five millionth person to call Coulter a Nazi -- but it seems clear she could have skillfully negotiated the Germany of the 1930s.

Not the best pizza by any stretch, but they do one thing right -- the oven vent blows out over the sidewalk of a busy UW district street, and it's irresistible if you're the least bit hungry. It's brilliant. I've kept that idea in the back of my head in the event I ever have to return to the restaurant industry....

You might want to give her a small break. I don't think they cover Ayn Rand until 9th grade.

I find this all over the place, among writers I like (Malcolm Gladwell) and those I don't (Thomas Friedman). Sure, marketing will sometimes punch up the drama with a snazzy title like "Best...." when the text doesn't demand it, but there's a lot of determinism going on out there, too. It's a quick and easy way to seize control of a debate -- whoever can deliver the most compelling narrative wins, regardless of its validity.

Once again … no. You had the BEST minds in the business and government over the last few years with NO CLUE there was a bubble in housing. Bubbles like this are notoriously hard to spot.

Wrong. The housing bubble was dinner party conversation in 2004, if you were having dinner with people who cared about something other than making a buck for themselves.

The clues were everywhere, the biggest one being the difference between the increase in housing values and the growth of the overall economy. It was unsustainable on its face.

It was allowed to fester not because everyone thought it would go on forever, but because too many people thought they could time it right and get out when the getting was good.

But they weren't a problem until the rules were changed in order to lend them money. Those rules were changed because bank shareholders and third-party investors demanded that more loans be extended, or else they would take their money to someone else who would. The Fed was complicit by keeping interest rates artifically low and by abdicating its responsibility as a regulator of bank-proffered mortgage products. These were the drivers of the bubble.

Your contention was that the BEST MINDS in business and government had no clue about the bubble, because bubbles are hard to identify. The implication as I read it being that if THEY didn't know, what chance did the rest of us have?

I'm saying it was possible to know, not that everyone knew (I'm not going to defend what I didn't say). I went on to say that more people knew than said so, but they considered themselves canny enough to profit personally. What is self-delusional about that?

Thy name is Pangloss.

Yes, you did. Cramer is a millionaire many times over from his days as a hedge fund manager. And while Stewart's grandma may or may not have suffered, a great many people who played by the rules have seen their nest eggs go up in smoke.

I remember them doing a bit on Letterman called "The Comedy Team That Weighs The Same", which basically consisted of them stripping down to their skivvies, attempting for a few minutes to build suspense about something nobody could possibly care about, and then stepping on two scales side-by-side. It was perfect for early Dave -- goofy, non sequitur stuff.

(And yes, they weighed the same.)