@DCLaw1

I have lately become addicted to Glenn Beck.

OK, now we have proof you're insane...

@Martin Gifford

When people read web articles, they are often in a hurry and they don't want to do too much thinking or deciphering.

Glenn left Joe Klein behind years ago; I think we're good.

@ Little Brother

I understand that Twitter is designed to give the straight skinny in 25 words or less

Sure, but if you want Glenn without the sarcasm, I certainly wouldn't recommend following him on Twitter!

Your post on Beck beautifully sums up the gaslighting of America. The most decrepid morals parade as status quo wisdom and the wrenched out voice of the individual is held up as absurdist lunacy. It becomes more and more like that Yeats poem.

Thank you, and we are very much agreed. I hope it's not just the accumulation of waxy cynicism in my ears, but this steady accumulation of national stumbles, failures, myths, and betrayals has inflicted upon me a weary view of the world of late. On the individual level, I so often see light, gentleness, fairness, and humanity. On the level of groups, communities, and nations, however, I too often see only the wrenching torrents of mass delusion, emotional brushfire, tribal acrimony, and willful blindness.

The herd breeds a viral devilishness in its collective heat, a hungry virus in the moisture of its many voices. So many subordinate their judgment to the hive mind, the perception of safety in acceptance and, perhaps most importantly, the animal thrill of ritually despising and tearing apart a rival. There may also be a certain tragedy of numbers, a cruelly cold mathematics of survival - that with so many eyes fixed upon the same, ephemeral prizes, justice itself starves upon the meager bones left behind by the dominant few, and from somewhere deep in the ancient warrens and riddles of our DNA comes a forboding voice that relentlessly utters the folk legend of the ravages brought by alienation from this merciless, punishing, vampiric, beloved fiefdom.

I live in DC and I'm a home delivery subscriber to the WaPo. I clearly recall both Krauthammers morally bereft defense of torture in a recent column and Froomkins response, which I was relieved to see published. I just sent a letter of protest to the ombudsman about Froomkins' firing.

I am unable to pray ( I lack the Jesus gene) so I will do the next best thing.

I plan to visualize the printed epitaph of the Washington Post every day until it dies.

Can you see it?

this point was made by Morris Berman in his 2006 book "Dark Ages America: The Final Stages of Empire." He was talking about the US empire and the reign of the neo cons. But it fits well here.

Like many others, no reason for me to look at WAPO. A couple of years ago I stopped looking at the LA times every day and only look at it a few times a year.

Maybe the papers have a tracer on who reads them and they want to eliminate people like us anyway.

Paraphrasing Prof Higgins plaintive queery, I wonder why Glenn Greenwald is so careless with the language from which he makes his living? For example -

"One of the rarest commodities in the establishment media is someone who was a vehement critic of George Bush and who now, applying THEIR principles consistently, has become a regular critic of Barack Obama -- " (capitalization added)

Surely Glenn does not mean "media" to be the aposition to "their", though "media" is the only plural noun in view! From the sense of his remarks, he must mean "someone", a singular noun.

"Their" has become greatly misused because of the gender problem in our uninflected language. A gender neutral, singular noun is often combined with the possessive adjective "their" or the pronoun "they" in order to avoid use of "his" or "him" when to reference could be to a woman or a girl. Far better to get the gender wrong, I think, than the number. We may be excused for now knowing the gender - especially in these days of gender equality (in the ideal!) - but not to know how to count at a mature age is, I think, inexcusable.

I thought he was referring to Froomkin, in the singular, myself.

In the process of lamenting Glenn's crime of careless language, you seem to have written "queery" instead of "query." Oh dear.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

2:00 PM PT

Shorter Deborah Howell:

The Post and the Whole Picture in Iraq

We're doing our best to publish all the good news we can find in Iraq but Christ, you know it ain't easy.

Plus: The way things are going, they're gonna crucify me. Washington Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell is pained - pained! - by a letter from a reader who claims to believe that Washington Post journalists are allied with the "terrorists":

One critic of the coverage is John Dowd, a Washington lawyer: "I can't subscribe to your newspaper anymore because you have lost all sense of balance and perspective in your coverage of the war in Iraq and against the terrorists. It is clear to those of us who have our sons and daughters who are in harm's way that you support the terrorists and you are opposed to the efforts of our Marines, all who are sacrificing so that you are free to publish without interference."

Dowd's son Dan is a Marine captain, just back from his second tour as a helicopter pilot in Iraq. Dowd sees his son and other U.S. and Iraqi soldiers "as the most selfless people I've known in my life." I found his letter haunting; it pains me that he would think Post journalists support terrorists.

Think about that.

A reader accuses Washington Post journalists of siding with Goldstein - er, terrorists - and Deborah Howell doesn't think, this man is either demented or trying to manipulate me. She doesn't crumple up and toss the letter and she doesn't add it to her loony folder, already overflowing with missives from crazed liberals. She does not take offense at the slur on her colleagues. Quite the opposite. She takes the complaint seriously.

Think about that again.

Seriously: should Deborah Howell be taken seriously?

See Also: More discussion of the assault on the media at Avedon Carol's SideShow and Peter Daou's Report.

See Also II: Read or scroll past the Howard Kurtz part to the Howell discussion at Why Are We Back In Iraq? (via memeorandum).

Update: Who is this John Dowd person, anyway? An unnamed commenter writes:

I read your post on Ms. Howell’s angst over being called a traitor by "John Dowd, a Washington lawyer".

Mr. Dowd is a trained republican partisan, not a "right wing nut case" (ok, maybe he is that too).

He is actually a well connected, former justice Dept attorney who works out of one of the largest firms in the city -- Akin and Gump.

Here is a list of his political contributions, as a start: link.

He also maxed out to Bush: link.

He actually represented McCain in the keating 5 controversy, and Az republican governor Symington in his fraud trial a few years back.

Deborah howell shouldn’t have been pained or haunted -- she should have just googled him -- it took me 5 minutes to figure out who he was and where he was coming from.

And, digby explains why we're doing all this while uggabugga finds David Broder finding Deborah Howell's analysis very thoughtful.

http://www.busybusybusy.com/b3_arc_06_0320.shtml

(the rest of the page is a little arcana of wingnuts, v.2006. I had to double check the date)

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j-h-c she's batshit stupid AND crazy.