Attention Hillary: you know those words and speeches of Obama's you criticize so often? See, this is where they do matter. If Obama were elected and promptly went to sleep for 4 straight years, it still would have been worth it solely for this opportunity, the chance to demonstrate to the rest of the spineless Democrats and to the American public that putting the GOP fearmongering in check is exactly what we've wanted the whole damned time.

If you're desperately seeking an alternative to this kind of crap, I have really enjoyed following Dan Rather Reports for the last 18 months or so. Unfortunately it airs only on HDNet so the audience is limited, but it's worth your time if you have the channel. It's styled more like a news magazine show, usually covering 2 or 3 topics per hour-long program, so there's none of the horse race fluff journalism you get on the networks. One episode last summer was an extensive interview with Benazir Bhutto; another examined the formaldehyde contamination issue in FEMA trailers along the Gulf coast over a year before the story reached the national consciousness. I'm not affiliated with the show in any way; I'm merely a fan of good investigative journalism.

Dems are getting better at this but they still suck at it. For instance, when some GOP pond scum (like Dana Perino - has there ever been a more shrill and combative press secretary?) throws the "unpatriotic" slur at Obama for the flag pin non-issue, the correct response is NOT to list the ways you're patriotic and the patriotic things you've voted on, etc. You're on defense from the start, and as we've seen repeatedly, the D in 'Dems' doesn't help any on that front. One of many correct responses to such GOP trash is to assemble a collage of photographs of Republican Congresscritters wearing their flag pins as they voted against pay increases for the troops, and as they voted against the bill that would have required equal time off for time spent in Iraq. This does so much more than taking the fight to the media where it's guaranteed to be distorted and rendered ineffective.

@djmagaro: "So the problem isn't just with the press but with the people who, for some reason, are willing and able to compartmentalize their critical-thinking abilities."

In other words, dittoheads. Right wing hate radio/TV has nearly done more to separate otherwise intelligent people from critical thinking skills than our educational system has.

The systematic dismantling of long-standing checks on abuse of authority in this administration has been astonishing, if anything can be at this point. It absolutely defies explanation to me that some people truly believe these people are working in our best interests. Just how much ass-covering does an administration need to perform before it becomes suspicious to these people? The other day a coworker bemoaned something Bush did but added "at least he did it with integrity." Had my knees not caught on the table I would have shot straight up to the ceiling and blew around like a deflating balloon.

What the hell is going on in this country? Less than a week after Bush used "stay the course" as a slam against Dems who refuse to acknowledge "progress" achieved by the surge, yesterday he uses it as the highest form of praise for McCain. This morning I watched David Gregory on the Today show interviewing Howard Dean, taking a forceful approach to his questioning and tenaciously sticking to unanswered questions until Dean addressed them. Yet this same hack, when interviewing Karl Rove a few months ago, did not once question the nearly continuous stream of non sequiturs and blatant dodges that escaped his pudgy piehole. Why the hell are journalists still scared of Republicans? It's maddening.

"Do [Republicans] worry at all that Hillary or Obama may have the same unchecked powers that Bush has enjoyed for 8 years?"

Their view seems to be that the president must have these powers to protect us, so in theory they should be happy to be passing along these "tools" to the next administration regardless of politics.

Of course, back here on Earth, the odds are they are already planning to spotlight the resulting abuses that will inevitably occur under the Dem president. They know from experience that the media will not draw a parallel to their own abuses while they were in power, and thus the general public will get the impression that the Democrats took these great new tools that used to work well and used them for their own advantage.

Wash hands, rinse, repeat.

Conservatives revere Saint Reagan's heroic rescue of the country from the nefarious, stagflated clutches of Jimmy Carter 30 years ago as a pivotal moment in their party history. With all signs indicating that the GOP is going into this election holding the recession bag, they're mortified that the Democrats have in Obama what may be their generational figurehead to usher in a decades-long majority.

Your post reminds me of the potentially deeper underlying issue behind the GOP's need to polarize everything. I've saved this image for years because it's spot-on:

http://bigtuna.smugmug.com/gallery/2692_M2G46#9753027_womXB-O-LB

"These people will swallow anything you feed them, so long as it leaves them with a demon to wrestle with in their dreams."