He does spend a great deal of energy vetting the administration's statements and policy, to his credit, but he seems to make special efforts to editorialize toward the "middle."

That extensive "vetting" process he touts simply is not apparent from his reporting. He continuously claimed that I "distorted" what he wrote by using only partial excerpts (even though I pasted long and unbroken paragraphs, as I try to do generally when quoting someone precisely to include the context), but the articles I cited were very imbalanced and gullibly passed on administration claims, often under the cover of anonymity. And how he could remember that drooling cover story he wrote about The Engaged and Detail-Commanding President and not be embarrassed is a mystery.

What is most deficient about his self-defense is that he continuously mischaracterizes the criticism most bloggers make of journalists like him. We do not want -- as I made clear several times in that post and as the the above commenter reiterates -- reporters to "land political punches" or be "partisan." To describe the criticism that way is just dishonest. The demand is for factually accurate reporting and, when it comes to claims from the government, skpetical reporting -- reporting which tries to determine if government claims are true, rather than just passing it along.

Why is that so hard for so many of them to understand? It seem so basic.

One other note: do you know Billmon, and if you do, do you suppose he'll ever return to blogging? Is there anything that we, his erstwhile audience, can do -- sending money included -- to persuade him to return to us?

I only know Billmon the way you do -- as a reader - but agree with everyone's assessment here of his unique abilities as a writer and political analyst. With very rare exception, it just simply is the case that the most insightful, talented and passionate political advocacy in the country occurs in the blogosphere, and Billmon was as good as it gets in every regard.

Glenn, shouldn't you qualify this statement? I mean, are all bloggers like this?

Fair point. I'll add a qualifier that I mean the predominant complaint - it's true that there are blogger complaints about articles here and there which amount to a desire to see their political views be adopted by the medai rather than complaints about factual accuracy and the like, but those are isolated exceptions.

Lieberman is a jew and as such represents israeli interests before american interests. He seeks the destruction ao all who israel find disagreeable.

It's always good to be reminded that abject stupidity, oozing bigotry, and pure malice is not confined to any one political ideology -- and that the enemy of one's enemy is not necessarily one's friend.

That may not be precisely what is in order, and I wonder if you didn't mean "skeptical" reporting, which most certainly is long-overdue vis-a-vis BushCo.

No, I think there is a critical component of the relationship between government and the media that is adversarial when it works the way it should (just as there is between the various branches). The watchdog role is inherently adversarial - one entity is designed to monitor the other and prevent it from engaging in certain behavior by investigating its actions, scrutnizing those actions for dishonest and impropriety, and exposing/disclosing them. And the media is charged with finding and disclosing facts which the government seeks to conceal.

That is adversarial. Like most adversarial relationships, that does not mean it is exclusively hostile or at cross-purposes, but there necessarily is an important component of that as well.

I wonder if Gordon sent an email to Calame asking him if he spent time embedded in Iraq, or provided him a free lesson in journamalism?

Good point. As we have seen, Gordon does not exactly view criticism of his work calmly or appreciatively. I wonder what he thinks about having been criticized twice in the NYT in less than a month - the first time by his own editor, the second time for being the Judy Miller of Iran.

It had to be particularly painful to watch the deficiencies in his work be documented by having the Public Editor point to articles on the same topic written by his colleagues as examples of how it should have been done. Maybe someone could e-mail Gordon - very, very politely and respectfully - and ask him what he thinks about the criticisms of his work that have been expressed by his own paper.

After all, as you point out, Gordon was embedded with troops.

Dinesh D'Souza just wrote a book - which made its way to the best-seller list - arguing that American culture is so depraved that Islamic radicals are right to hate it. bGlenn Beck recently made similar comments.

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson both said that the 9/11 attacks were the fault of America for veering onto an immoral course.

By your "reasoning," I just cited four right-wing figures who made anti-American statements, which means that I now get to say that most anti-Americanism is on the right.

Though do compare the individuals I named to the ones you named and let me know which group is composed of more influential individuals with a larger following on their side of the spectrum. To help you out, the comparison is:

Dinesh D'Souza - Glenn Beck - Pat Robertson - Jerry Falwell

v.

Ward Churchill - some guy at Columbia - Katha Pollit (not Katerina Vanden Huevel) - Robert Fisk