That's an important point, and good for you for getting on it. I took the question to be about the Politico's journalists.

What can you even say about a BS answer like this. The combination of condescension and evasion gives you the arrogance and the incompetence all in one package. "Good for you, li'l man" along with "I wouldn't have even thought to wonder."

Of course, big corporations that own media outlets have their own interests, so a key question is whether a newsroom

is truly independent.

As if the relationship between Politico and its owners warrants no more concern than any other corporate-owned media outlet--which is to say "none whatsoever," in Kurtz' professional opinion.

What turns a "journalist" into an ideologue these days is excess criticism of the prevailing Beltway power structure and its most revered and important figures. That -- and only that -- is what distinguishes Olbermann from those considered to be "real journalists." The function of modern "journalists" is to serve as spokespeople for the Beltway system, to defend it, to adhere strictly to its rules of conduct.

You consistently hit this nail on the head. The pundit corps has become so (let's hope not inextricably) intertwined with the govt it's supoposed to cover that they behave as a single, self-protecting entity. Olbermann is crashing the party, and the fact that he takes on both govt players and their media enablers makes it the job of the old hands at AP to dispatch him posthaste.

We've all been getting along so well, but, no, George Bush really is the worst president ever. Actually, Andrew Jackson killed all those Indians and nobody seems to care, and Truman did drop nukes on Japan and even McNamara admitted that was a war crime, but after that, it's definitely George Bush.

He's put us behind the rest of the developed world in every way imaginable. He has done everything in his power to establish a totalitarian state. I just can't say enough bad things about him.

jojo++:

@kdwmson

"collectivist" political forms such as socialism or fascism (variations on the same theme)

Now, that's the kind of over-simplification that upsets non-Libertarian liberatarians.

Boy, howdy! kdwmson is a much smoother propagandist than Mona. Makes you really appreciate her intellectual honesty, along with her other gifts. Once you start tuning into kdwmson's implicit message, all the smoothness just melts away.

One quick-and-dirty definition of hegemony is ideology expressed as common sense. And this appears to be kdwmson's specialty. Mona, OTOH, expresses ideology as ideology, which means you can have an honest debate. And for all that I disagree with her about, I respect that sort of outfront honesty, however misguided I think the views may be.

You can also see this same sort of hegemonic delivery when kdwmson says:

I don't think there's any need for particularly rigid or torturous logic to support libertarian positions....

If you believe that people are basically capable and do a good job of managing their own lives and a generally poor job of managing other people's lives, the essentially libertarian point of view makes a lot of sense.

Sounds like common sense, no? Until you strart to wonder how such common sense would have handled the Great Depression? Or ending racial segregation? Or putting the breaks on the environmental degradation running rampant on the first Earth Day? Or--to make things more current--how, exactly, does it justify privatizing Social Security? Or repealing hate-crime laws? Or busting unions? Because that's precisely where the real dividing line between liberals and libertarians lies.

One way or another, the libertarian philosophy is based on what works best for those in privileged positions in privileged societies--or those who strongly identify with same, whether through wish-fulfillment fantasy, or other psychological mechanisms. It treats the real-life issues that confront the less fortunate and less powerful as secondary concerns--at best.

There are many different ways to express this indifference (if not downright hostility) toward "the least among us." I like the honest libertarians the best. They simply deny that there are collective rights or responsibilities: "You're on your own, bud," at least has the ring of honesty about it.

It makes you feel so clean, after having a used car salesman talk your ear off.

I almost did a double take today when I walked past a newstand and saw the huge words, "BUSH . . . RESOLUTE OR DELUSIONAL?" for today's "U.S. News" cover story.

Krauthammer better get busy finding a vaccine for B.D.S.

http://sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000E2F1B-C4FA-1331-841D83414B7FFE9F

Antigravity
October 2005 issue

By Steve Mirsky

. . . Speaking of big government, on August 1 President George W. Bush endorsed the teaching of so-called intelligent design as an alternative to evolution. Intelligent design, as noted in this space in February, is "the full-blown intellectual surrender strategy" that proposes that a scientific explanation of life's complexity requires the intercession of a supernatural being. But examination of the available data leads only to the conclusion that the biggest beneficiary of the Bush presidency is Warren Harding.

- - Steve Mirsky

... wrote the biography of Murray Rothbard (really good book: "Enemy of the State") and seems to be in accord with Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism.

Clonk.

Sounds like a superhero, doesn't it? Timberman! (Sort of an amorous superhero, though.)

I don't share your assessment of W. (I expect I'm disappointed in him for reasons that are different from yours.) I think most of what is wrong with the performance of our government has to do with expecting government to do things it has not much business doing than with the eccentricities of the chief executive. Much of what really makes the world move is far, far removed from the powers of the president. Think about Clinton's performance during the Asian currency crisis? Was it good? I suppose so. Would a Republican, or another Democrat, or an independent have done things much differently? It's hard to imagine that they would have.

Most people who really hate Bush hate him because of the war. After 9/11, the U.S. government was going to kill some Arabs and wasn't going to be choosy about which Arabs. I think Dennis Miller is close to the truth when he jokes that Saddam "drew the Wonka ticket in the asshole lottery." Could've been Syria. I don't think a President Gore would have done things much differently. He would almost certainly have been a more effective diplomat, as would anybody who is not a Republican from Texas, especially one who talks about Jesus on television. We got a war because the people wanted it and Congress approved it. People change their minds, and so do congresses.

There's a tendency among libertarians, liberals, and communists to say that "real libertarianism" or "real x" or "real y" has never been tried and therefore can't be criticized. I think that is basically bunk.

There's a tendency among progressives to create ever-more-elaborate conspiracy theories (Halliburton, Fox News, voting machines) to explain away the basic failure of progressivism to achieve anything more inspiring than a massively dysfunctional welfare state. Progressives need to believe that "the people" are on their side or that the people have been duped ("What's the Matter with Kansas?") rather than acknowledge that "the people" are eccentric and myopic and as likely to be motivated by bigotry or rent-seeking or superstition as they are to be enlightened citizens. When "the people" wave flags and talk about Jesus on television and vote against gay marriage, progressives experience acute cognitive dissonance and seek enemies. I'm not that old, but I can remember that before W. was the worst president ever, GHW Bush was the worst president ever and that Reagan and Ford were the worst presidents ever before him, and that every Republican has presided over "the worst economy since the Great Depression." It's not convincing.

On the other hand, classical liberalism is modest in its ambitions; it makes promises it can keep. So I'll take a better world in my lifetime over a perfect world in theory.