Awesome column. I just love when some right-wing nitwit gets their ass handed to them like that.

Hey, now! MrJohnson is clearly writing under two bylines (deluted, indeed). I thought only Greenwald was allowed to sock-puppet.

As fast as these RepuGlicans are running these days to get away from Bush it must be hard for Simon to catch up to them to KISS THEIR ASSES!!!!!! Tommie27

still don't feel better. most "journalists" are media whores.

mad in bristow

Thank you.

I don't mind them flogging the haircut so much. News organizations are known to flog stories they break.

Politico.com sucks. It's writers are hacks. They raised a buncha capital, hired a few names, bought co-sponsorships of debates and such, got press... Yet they've already redesigned their website, deluted their writing, and basicaly become inert. They wil gone by Fall.

Politico.com sucks. It's writers are hacks. They raised a buncha capital, hired a few names, bought co-sponsorships of debates and such, got press... Yet they've already redesigned their website, deluted their writing, and basicaly become inert. They wil gone by Fall.

Glenn, spot on, as always.

You always hear "don't dignify their accusations by responding to them..." Well, in this case, don't dignify these 'msm' by calling them journalists.

The way people receive their information is changing rapidly. Blogging and amorphous link-forwarding culture is replacing traditional news as the common workers' way to keep abreast (from my perspective in the silicon valley, anyway). Reputation is replacing expectations, and the distinction between 'blogger' and 'msm' is losing meaning. I mean, duh, how long does it take for a popular new paradigm to become 'mainstream'? How would you classify Salon? In the credibility ratings, 55% vs 45% is a huge edge, in cumulative evolutionary terms. Distinguishing blogger from msm is a tactic of entrenched organizational news and a self-assumed and false weakness of the new news.

Underdogs should always try to forget their assumed weaknesses.

can i get a hallaluja?

(thank god someone is sane)

The Rovian technique is to always hit back at an opponents strength usually with fabrication, innuendo, and distortion. For example, if your strength is your service in war, the response from Rove is to claim you a coward, mistakenly cited as a hero.

What a sad thing to say Politicos strength is their ability to promote ignorance (Haircuts as political discourse, not suits and shoes of course, just haircuts) and bigotry (...like Edwards is so gay...). The response to Politicos strength does not require fabrication, innuendo, or distortion, it only requires to forever more refer to Politico as the Hair and Manner Magazine.

Thank you for a clear and pointed analysis.

I watched the fear-mongering Republican presidential wannabes invoke the name of Osama over and over again during their "debate", trying to remind us all why we need to be scared and hoping that we will still be fooled into thinking that they are our only hope, and I thought, surely someone in the media will bring up the fact that it has been the controlling Republican Party which has spectacularly failed for 6 years to find Osama - diverting time, blood and money on an unnecessary war in Iraq intead of getting those responsible for 9/11.

Silly me.

Mr. Greewald is right, the media is too busy gossiping and acting like the main characters of some bad cinematic combination of "Heathers" and "Mean Girls" to actually report news or do anything even vaguely resembling investigative journalism.

Remember the one table in the high school cafeteria where only the coolest kids sat and how they insulted everyone not cool enough to sit with them and how totally oblivious they were to their own meanspirited shallowness and self-absorbtion?

Welcome to what passes for political "journalism" today.

Once again superb commentary on the irrelevant tiny echo-chamber that is the Washington media. I can't wait for Moyers to interview Greenwald.

I was all set to not renew my subscription this year. Let's face it, any organization that at this late date thinks it's a good idea to host Camille Paglia's autohagiographical ruminations is likely beyond redemption.

But then you somehow convinced Glenn Greenwald to set up his kiosk at your little Curiosity Shop. I can get my Tom Tomorrow fix elsewhere, but now I can get TT and GG in one place... Damn you damn you damn you.

Don't you recognize cutting edge journalism when you see it? :-) ;-)

Henceforth, please let us bracket the word "debate" in regards to what has passed for same so far, with quotation marks (see above). These are NOT debates. These don't even remotely resemble debates. They remind me of the "forums" or assemblies we'd have when I was in highschool where the student council president candidates would get up in front of everyone and spew forth utter blather about why they should be elected.

Debate? HAH! Think Lincoln-Douglas, think what goes on in highschools and universities when a debate team actually takes to the stage: real debate. You know, stating a proposition and defending it with lucid and logical thought AND intelligent argument between contenders in attack/defense. Real debate doesn't look anything even remotely like what has happened on the idiotbox thus far for either the Dems or Rethugs. Put quotation marks around the term whenever used in this context, please. Think of the children. They will grow up thinking that this crap is debate and has substance!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same Roger Simon who fabricated in a column a year or so ago the claim that Cindy Sheehan said the United States was not a country worth dying for?

I personally read the transcription of her actual remarks and found Ms Sheehan had suggested that IRAQ was for us a country not worth dying for (in the context that her son had in fact died there)...which she followed with the crystal clear statement that she would personally go to war for her own country, with a only a broom if necessary. There was no room for honest misinterpretation to anyone who heard or read the actual comments, only for devious distortion.

Despite the facts, Simon, when confronted with his deviance from the facts, wrote letters to newspaper(s) falsely claiming he was right and attacking those who corrected him. [For example, this occurred in my own home delivered paper the Charleson Gazette (online as wvgazette.com).] Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge Simon has yet not acknowledged his deceit, and thereby remains a dishonest commentator.