Arne Langsetmo:
Just a FYI, folks... .... day 37 of ignoring "bucky1". And I'm a happier man for that.

I have no doubt he is the greater beneficiary. Feel free to extend the same protocol to my posts as well. Please.

Any guesses/theories?

No idea how many, but we should up with a counterpart to "Godwin's Law," if only to save time.

However, until Glenn gives his view, I doubt the local cabal (the ones who live here 24/7) will take a position.

Just goes to show you're truly clueless.

Cheers,

Then prove me wrong! We are in the campaign season --- who can you say you support?

I am not afraid to make a choice; I was labeled as [fill in cuss word here] for doing so -- but I just read Glenn, I do not worship. I doubt such a guy as Glenn would even want people to do so.

"you little boy."-bucky1

I don't get your attempts at insults. You don't make sense to me.

DCLaw1:

What is the average amount of pages of comments before the inevitable infighting over libertarianism or some semantical tangent?

My guess is 15. My theory is that it has to do with the time of day (usually corresponds to just about lunch/naptime). The semantics/tangent discussions are often quite interesting (to me) but, frankly, I've found most libertarians to be impractical nutjobs (no offense!), so I skip those.

This column is worthy of a Pulitzer Prize. Once again Glenn Greenwald has captured the essence of our criminal elite, this time the media Mafia.

I have been saying since before the "Iraq" invasion that the Bush regime is a criminal operation, and to entirely deaf ears to this day. People would rather hate Bush than look at the true nature of his administration. I'm beginning to get a clear understanding of why this is so.

It is because of ego. Saying the Bush regime is a criminal gang is a conversation breaker. Too many times I have been in discussions with "liberals," and have brought up the subject of the Bush gang as a criminal organization, and the response has been no response, but a continuance of the litany of Bush's crimes. What these conversations are are one-upping contests, the "liberal" know-it-alls feverishly reciting their encyclopedic knowledge of Bush's incompetence, arrogance, mendacity and lawlessness. To actually say that this president is a criminal sociopath is to stray from the script.

In other words, "liberals" are as authoritarian as their "conservative" counterparts. They are completely dependent on the perceptions and opinions of their chosen hierarchy. There are exceptions, of course, but I can count on three fingers the people I have had real conversations with about the nature of the Bush regime.

With more writers like Glenn Greenwald, Eric Boehlert, and others, maybe the herd dialogue will change. Let's hope so.

And then he proceeded, immediately, to ascribe a "motive" to me-- and everyone else here-- for waiting until Glenn endorses a candidate before we will too.

I think it's laughable that anyone would think of Glenn's blog in that kind of sense. I've never known him to endorse a politician (correct me if I'm wrong). The closest I've seen him come has been praise for Russ Feingold - simply as an example of a politician who can take a principled stand on important national security and domestic liberty issues, not as a candidate for office.

A large part of the reason I come to this blog is because it's (thankfully) devoid of the typical, bloviating election discussions. I don't know about anyone else, but Glenn's endorsing a candidate at this point would be like seeing Maya Angelou in a gangster rap video.

but I just read Glenn, I do not worship. I doubt such a guy as Glenn would even want people to do so.

-- bucky1

There is no connection between you choosing a candidate, any of us choosing a candidate, and who Glenn might or might not choose as a candidate. You keep making the same point over and over again that we are waiting for Glenn before we make a choice. Then I point that out to you and about you and you call me a liar (and a little boy) for pointing that out. The exasperation factor is off the charts.

... And when I suggested on an earlier post a few days ago that his believing the bolded part might be one reason for his incessant defensiveness-- invoking the libertarian votes for Nader, and that we are ALL (the whole world) suffering under GWB, rather than thriving during a 2nd Gore term-- he denied it, and criticized me for trying to ascribe a motive to him, rather than paying attention to the "evidence."

I have never voted or supported the green party. How the hell does my observation that both parties are pro-war make me a Nader guy? That is just a dumb idea.

I have never voted for the outfit that claims to be the 'Libertarian Party'; in fact I have never voted 3rd party.

Why do you carry on about the green party and me?????

Amen to all that!

One thing that really resonates for me was this, right off the bat:

I was reminded of how much harder it was to find stuff out back before there was an Internet. Woodward and Bernstein spent days doing research, flew across the country and pounded the pavement and knocked on doors for weeks on end to find out the kind of stuff you could ferret out today in fifteen minutes with Google. There’s a paradox for you: reporters today won’t take fifteen minutes to obtain the kind of information they would spend weeks discovering thirty years ago. Maybe part of our problem today is that the cost of getting facts is so low that reporters no longer value them.

Though it's not the reporters so much, it's the entire corporate newsgathering enterprise. The reporters are only bit players in this ecosystem of power.

Again, this ties back into what I've been saying today about argument by assertion. Repetitive assertion works as reporting, too. The idea that you have to explain how something works (background in order to understand a story), or describe how and why a situation developed, or some political action was taken... any of that is just viewed as too much work, and people wouldn't stand still for it anyway.

Thus, facts are of little import. Talking points are so much crisper, don'tcha know! And with a light, tangy taste that just screams excitement/ adventure/ dependability/ authenticity/ whateveralready.

As for the momentous shift between then and now, a large part of that is because Nixon really was a pioneer. He was out there, almost on his own dismantling the Republic. Oh, sure, he had ideological allies like J. Edgar Hoover. But Hoover was his own paranoid freak of a man. Nixon's team was remarkably small and tight-knit. He didn't trust the GOP establishment farther than he could throw them.

A great reference on this is Richard Reeves: President Nixon: Alone In The White House, it's got more insight than just about any 10 other books on Nixon. While Nixon's team was small, his legions of wannabees were, well, legion. And they're the guys running the GOP today.

So, like, any questions? Cause we've got great little cells at Guantanamo for anyone who's got questions.