Power is coming back to people.

the policy of a nation should not be the plaything of any single person, even if elected.

america is a monarchy, elective, but a monarchy. there are bad kings and worse kings, but there cannot be good kings anymore than there can be good masters of slaves.

continuing to vote for kings is the politics of the slave, willing to turn his fortune over to a 'better' person, or unable to conceive resisting the society he was born into. the result is evil people seek power and get it, by forming gangs, called parties, and lying about what they do, or doing it in secret.

obama may be a better hyena than dubya and his gang, but the difference is trivial. every president is evil, it comes with the job, and good people do not apply.

the bloggers aren't going to win. winning can only be a verbal coup, until the people stand up and demand democracy. but a people debased by a lifetime of submission to national myths is not going to stand up anytime soon.

I wonder if anyone had the same experience I did. When I first discovered Glenn's blog at Salon, I took a look, and was so impressed that I have never missed a single blog he's written since.

His expansive knowledge, the "window-pane clarity," as George Orwell would say, of his writing, and his passion and determination have all combined to make him the most compelling writer online.

Go, Glenn.

Glenn Greenwald is one of the few real journalists we Americans have nowadays. As bad as things have looked over the past few years, with a government that has tortured, waged war for profit, committed illegal rendition and illegal wiretapping, and basically all the other ways they've shown every day that we are living in an oligarchy and not a democracy - as bad as all that has been, it would have been so much worse without the independent media that we've been able to enjoy on the Internet. Thanks to the netroots, we still have intelligent people like Glenn Greenwald and Marcy Wheeler (good job hiring her too, Salon) to provide actual news instead of the corporate propaganda most media outlets dish up nowadays. Having these writers on board definitely makes the Salon subscription a real bargain.

Bloggers like Glenn Greenwald don't post personal information. I am dismayed to see you give such detailed instructions on how to find Glenn, when and where. Perhaps a little editing is in order?

Speaking as one of the thousands of "online-only-journalists" let me say that Glenn Greenwald's writing and influence was an absolute revelation when I first started reading his blog at Salon. It's the best work I ever saw online, and while I write on niche politics (transportation reform)I know there are literally thousands of us that try to imitate Greenwald's style, research and success when working on our own sites.

Thanks to the body of work produced in general at SALON and specifically by GG.

Boehlert seems to have forgotten 2004 when conservative bloggers found huge holes in the Bush AWOL story that helped caused Kerry's defeat.

BTW, Why no mention of the original NYTimes investigation that revealed warantless wiretapping in the first place.

is my description of Greenwald on all counts. Like a poster upthread, once having discovered him (link on Kos) I haven't missed a day since. Absolutely love him.

in the fight for civil liberties, the "rule of law," lawful foreign policy--hell, you name it. He's always in the thick of it.

He doesn't hesitate to loose his salvos at Obama--nor should he.

Hyperbole aside, there is only one blogger whose posts I refuse to miss. Even if I'm holiday for a week and return to a Google Reader full of hundreds of RSS entries, Glenn gets my full attention.

You are a global asset, Glenn. Your dedication is an example to us all, bloggers, journalists and civil libertarians alike, wherever we are. I'm in the UK, but I am inspired by what you write every day. If there's one thing the Internet has taught us, it's that power, influence and corruption have no borders, so neither should the struggle for liberty, transparency and accountability.

Keep doing what you do best, for all our sakes.

I wouldn't ever come to this site. The rest of Salon gets crappier by the day. Also, it's a little incestuous for Salon to be verbally fellating one of its own columnists, dontcha think?

I haven't missed a post since i found Glenn either. What i like best about GG is calling a spade a spade and giving credit where it's due. He's as fair as our constitution. To bad it doesn't seem to work any more.

A true patriot in my eyes, Glenn thank you for taking up where the fourth estate left us dying in the ditch.

Since the main stream media seems more interested in selling whatever, the blogs are all that are left(for the most part).

The wheels are coming off, and i'm afraid we're all going to get hit one way or the other.

Keep up the great work!

From Gainesville, Florida.

I'm a blog fan, but as with so many "new media triumph" stories this is thin gruel.

First,"with no traditional-media allies" is horse hockey. Nearly all the information Glenn Greenwald used to write his allegedly influential blog posts came from the work of journalists, most in traditional media, some in traditional alternative media. It was some of the oldest newspapers around which broke the wiretap story in the first place.

Why is it that bloggers, so quick to crow the few times they they are plagiarized or get a story first, seem to act like the source for vast amount of their information doesn't count?

Plus there were non-blogging voices pushing this story: Air America, MSNBC, Democracy Now! and some influential columnists. Glenn can't take credit for a story they noticed on their own. They chose him to flesh it out ex post facto.

While some media downplayed the story, some still ran stories. It really bugs me that Boehlert acts like McClatchy newspapers, which has consistently pushed stories others don't, is invisible.

Second, bloggers didn't change the focus on their own, a large number of political activists who took an interest in the story pushed it. I received messages from the ACLU and other groups about this repeatedly. They helped spread the information, but Bloggers don't get to take all credit for that either.

Third, the bloggers lost. For all the heat and noise, even from Obama supporters on his own website, the legislation protecting phone companies passed. As Glenn predicted, this seemed to halt accountability in it's tracks.

Even with new revelations (produced by journalism in traditional media) there seems little chance past transgressions will be fully investigated. There's no assurance the policies or abuses have stopped either.

In fact, one might argue that having the story owned by bloggers might have allowed it to be dismissed. Or maybe the right wing bloggers won. Or, most likely, blogs are no more influential than traditional media and sometimes less. But these are possibilities new media evangelists like Boehlert can't permit this.