Thanks for the warning. For sure, willful ignorance is a law unto itself.

Is Bernbart a pill bug finding a home in the damp dark recesses of this comment section?

Glenn's blog today was a total emotional rant.

As your statement is so definitive and self-assured while providing no proof, there is probably little point in responding. Needless to say, I disagree, but will wait for your justification before providing any proof of my own.

Obviously communication is complex and always contains an emotional component. What is critical is the role emotion plays in the communication and the way in which it is expressed or filtered. A 'rant' would imply a preponderance of yelling, fist-pounding, etc. I see none of that. 'Emotional rant' would imply a rant devoid of rational fact and argument. That really isn't GG's strongpoint.

Have you read anything on the nature of communication, such as by Watzlawick, e.g.

"Some Tentative Axioms of Communication", by Watzlawick, Beavin and Jackson" [ http://www.colorado.edu/communication/meta-discourses/Papers/App_Papers/Roiniotis.htm ]

Or on the difference between raw emotion and emotional intelligence, such as detailed in works by Daniel Goleman.? As noted in this digest of Goleman's book "Working with Emotional Intelligence", it says under "Some Misconceptions":

· First, emotional intelligence does not mean merely “being nice,” but rather, for example, bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth they have been avoiding.

· Second, emotional intelligence does not mean giving free rein to feelings. Rather, it means managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goal.

· Lastly, levels of emotional intelligence are not fixed genetically,[...]emotional intelligence seems to be largely learned, and it continues to develop through life and learn from our experiences.

[ www.bizsum.com/2page/b_Workingwithemotionalintellegence.php ]

I suggest you are mistaking Glenn's "bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth" with a rant. But a rant is "giving rein to feelings". That was Joe Klein. Glenn was "managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively". That's what's behind his rapid rise "on the Gandhi scale" as another commenter put it earlier on.

Your too quick to lash to when someone disagrees with you

In my experience it is not when someone disagrees with him but a) when those "someones" disagree with themselves i.e. are self-contradictory in the media and fail to realize or acknowledge it, while claiming in all instances to be right and b) when the talk and actions of those "someones" are blatantly in "disagreement" with the Constitution and our laws.

Glenn's strength lies in the opposite of your claim: exactly because he is able to separate the personal and emotional from the rational facts. Facts are not malleable. A nation that is told so often that 'black is white' and 'up is down' that many citizens apparently end up believing it needs to learn there is actually a distinction. Calling someone on the truthful facts is not a "disagreement" it's a correction, a statement of the obvious. It's pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes.

PWAUT Pathetic Woman Acolyte at Unclaimed Territory.

Count me in!

although I would hope to claim a more rational brain.

Once again another huge thanks for your work! This post gives excellent expression to its raison d'etre and why it is so utterly essential in our times. It should be posted on every journalist's mirror for honest reflection while brushing their teeth in the morning.

I missed your last call for donations and now I absolutely must! But I couldn't find a link. Please, please let me know where to find it.

Bless you!

P.S. to Jim White @ around 6:38 - Beautifully succinct juxtaposition on 'The Record'. You'd think MSM journalists imagine they were writing on a chalk board rather than in print ink! It would certainly be more convenient for them.

At this point I think one can fairly say that Obama outright lied to the American public during his campaign. As you have documented multiple times, Obama has not only reversed himself in opposing Bush policies, he is now actively going beyond them.

Obama's campaign promises were not vague, nor were they unreasoned. Are we to believe he is too weak to carry through? I couldn’t credit that. Obama is not lacking political support – Congress seems to follow him wherever he decides to go. The law would be on his side were he to carry through on this campaign promises. So why is this reversal and cover-up happening at the speed of light? Why? What is going on??????

Contrary to your own assessment of Obama's civil liberties speech in your article of May 21st that it has "a positive impact on our debate and contained some welcome and rare arguments from a high-level political leader" (even though it contradicts Obama's own actions), I see Obama's fine words as an insidious facade to blind people to the fact of what is really going on, namely the dismantling of the house behind it - our democracy and the rule of law.

I cannot fathom it succeeding. If people would allow that to happen then we are lost beyond the point of no return.

Unfortunately I could fathom it. It could happen by stealth and upon desired implementation clamp down on unwanted expression of dissent under some pretense, making it harder for people to organise. There is one heck 'uv a lot I wouldn't have fathomed that has happened already.

The media might not report stuff on their own, but other means of spreading truth are growing

Which is why we all need to keep an eye on what's going on with proposed internet legislation

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/cybersecurity-act "Federal Authority Over the Internet? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009" (link at sig)

and

http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2009/05/06 "Government Still Blocking Information on Secret IP Enforcement Treaty"