*Gulp*

... at those who haven't yet, as they say, gotten over it re: Maddow's handling of the Hillbama wars.

msnbc -- including consummate journalist Rachel Maddow -- absolutely savaged Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries, but for some reason that's the one media critique that's off the table (to be fair, I recall you mentioned it once, in the post where you slammed Bill Clinton for comparing Obama's candidacy to Jesse Jackson's).

Heaven forbid someone critique media or political figures when all they did was propagate lies about a major Democratic candidate a whole three months ago!

Boy, you really have to be some foil-hatted wacko in a cave somewhere to reach back that far for such trivialities as media dishonesty during the current election season.

Somerby has a good word for people who propelled RFK-gate -- liars -- or, rather, in the Howler's incomprably discreet way, people who were "not telling the truth."

http://dailyhowler.com/dh061008.shtml

Thank goodness Maddow reserved her lying for the one Democratic political figure who is beneath contempt, the one whom "liberal" bloggers like John Cole mocked for "playing the victim card" for defending herself against completely manufactured allegations.

I am chagrined for bringing it up.

Glenn, how'd you get them to Brazil? Does Brazil not have the draconian quarantine rules I thought were pretty standard?

It was actually amazingly easy, and nothing is easy in Brazil. Just a couple of veterinarian's certificates that they had various vaccines and they went right through immigration and customs - not even an hour of quarantine.

I more or less declined a position in (at the time) W. Germany because my Golden would've had to endure something on the order of 6 months quarantine.

Good to hear. I'd sooner work at TNR than allow someone to quarantine my dogs even for 6 days, let alone 6 months. I think the cross-border dog rules have really liberalized in most places as people now move more commonly.

You're putting words into Grassley's mouth that he didn't actually say and then demanding to know why I didn't challenge them. He didn't say that there has been "aggressive oversight" of Bush under the Democratic Congress. He said there has been more oversight lately -- which is true, since at least Democrats hold hearings, even though they never go anywhere, and he wondered if it would be "as aggressive" under a Democratic President

-Glenn Greenwald

I pasted his words in my comment just as they were spoken. The senator said and i quote

"if we have an Obama presidency - we're surely going to have a Democratic Congress - are they going to be as aggressive in oversight of the new administration as they are of a Republican administration?"

That implies that "aggressive oversight" is being done to the Republican administration. Are you staisfied with this oversight Glenn? You think that hearing that "never go anywhere" should be considered "aggressive oversight" by our Senators?

IMHO we as citizens should demand a whole hell of a lot more. Your question of the past republican congress did nothing to address this obviously flawed view of "aggressive oversight" and instead pits Dems vs. Reps. What's the goal here, a Congress that respects its laws or finger pointing on who sucks more and when?

The senator not mentioning the failures of the past congress is not nearly as important as his failure to understand the term "aggressive oversight".

Then I've got quite a dog story about Cecil, our rescue dog from New Orleans. Don't tempt me...

I'm referring to the media's biased treatment of Hillary Clinton, not Maddow's role in it.

You write: MSNBC should not be the answer to Fox News. The answer to Fox News is to continually undermine their credibility and destroy their business model (biased propaganda as news) as responsible journalists continue to put forward accurate and unbiased reporting.

Excuse me. We've been continually undermining Fox News' credibility for years, and it has become evident that smart people alone can't destroy their business model either by pointing out that Fox News is "news for the stupid" or by refusing to watch. As long as Grandma in Missouri continues to tune in, as long as Fox News continues to blare incessantly from every TV in every McMedical clinic's waiting room, every fitness center, and anywhere else we're forced to wait for crappy customer service, as long as News Corporation owns its very own satellite TV company (DirecTV), an as long as we the smart think we can stamp out yellow journalism simply by ignoring it, Fox News will continue to exist, nay, to prosper.

"Accurate and unbiased reporting" will not cut it. You have to answer it. Bravo for MSNBC for realizing that the best way to compete with Fox is to be the un-Fox. I hope this trend continues.

I think Rachel Maddow is terrific and really really smart. That's why some people are afraid of her. She and Richard Wolfe and Chuck Todd..all good..all smart. TNR has been a bit too AIPACy for a while now.

Could you please provide examples of Maddow unfairly criticizing Hillary Clinton? I would like to see a couple. People keep saying that she did, but they never offer any example. Please provide a couple.

Do you really have to pretend that EVERYTHING is such a vein-popping, keyboard-smashing, end of the world problem?

I mean, yes, Liberal readers tend to appreciate posts from half-informed, confused, and pissed-off-about-it people; but you just posted 2,200 words about an article that did nothing more than criticize the hyper-partisanship of television reporting.

I’m sure your devoted fans don’t feel the same way, but from an (roughly) objective point of view, getting so fired up about something this minor makes it hard to take anything else you write seriously. I mean, where do you go after using 2,200 hyperbole-saturated words about THIS?

In response to Nick's eloquent rant, you wrote:

However, if you read Mr. Perlstein's excellent book 'Nixonland' you will see that some dedicated but very naive young people failed to understand the propaganda ramifications of some stunts they did in those times.

Evil POS's like Roger Ailes & his ilk were able to selectively twist certain incidents to the point where they really hurt the Democratic party.

You're falling into the same trap that's already snared too many Democrats and journalists - don't say or do anything that conservatives may some day in some way twist and turn against you. For instance, this comment to Glenn earlier today:

I'd be a bit more cautious if you plan on destroying the personality of Tucker Carlson, especially if you care at holding together your Strange Bedfellows Coalition. Although Carlson is ideologically a rather slippery fellow, he does hold strong ties to Ron Paul's Campaign for Liberty.

To which Glenn posted this spot-on reply:

Oh, absolutely. I better start catering everything I say to make sure I never utter a word that is upsetting to someone who might be inclined to support the Strange Bedfellows coalition. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do -- no more criticizing libertarians, or liberals, or Democrats, or independents, lest I cause someone who might support Strange Bedfellows to become angry.

The thing is, no matter what you say or do in opposition to the status quo, its defenders will indeed twist and turn that against you, make propaganda hay out of it. Since the MSM collaborate in that propagandistic attack, there's not a lot you can do unless you've got a lot of money and organization, which the '60s youth did not have and that Obama does have. And even with all that money and organization, Obama is still having a very hard time countering the relentless Republican attack that uses lie and innuendo as its primary weapons.

And so you're still just supposed to walk on eggshells? That's how nothing gets done and how we end up where we are today, with a non-functioning mainstream news media and politicians blatantly lying while they trash the Constitution.