Isn’t G.G. just begging everyone to play together nicely?

And, isn’t C. Todd saying you can’t spend any time in this playground without giving up your lunch money to its bully…

Now, we can encourage G.G. because we’d like not to be picked on or beaten up when we’re out playing. But, aren’t we just attacking the messenger here in going after C. Todd?

Can we blame C.Todd for doing what he’s told, or being worried about having to admit he does? If the playground is run by a bully, as C. Todd acknowledges, then we should give him credit for pointing this out even in the oblique ways he chooses.

The question, though, isn’t primarily what we should do about the messengers, but what we can do about the bully.

Are we going to get anywhere by begging the bully to play by the rules when the bully is feeding off of everyone’s lunch money?

Playing by the rules will only appeal to the bully, or any of the rest of us, when doing so will get us farther than not.

So, it does seem unfair to beat up on C. Todd for not “telling truth to power” when the “rule of law,” “democracy,” or a “free press” will not make the bully do what bullies don’t want to do.

thank for your answer re: Todd's assertion that the attorney firings were "legal."

I will submit Todd's apparent falsehood to factcheck.org and politifact.com for review.

What amazed me about the interview is that Chuck obviously is intelligent and has respect for Glenn's opinions, but is so totally blinded by the 'dark side' of political consideration that he just can't deal with the basic tenet of our justice system; that it's supposed to be blind.

He may be right that it would be impossible to mount a non-politicized investigation and/or prosecution. Regardless, he should realize that without *some* bedrock principles, society fails to function. Are our bedrock principles the rules of law, or the rules of politics? Isn't it that simple?

While I'm sure I will add nothing new to the plethora of comments, in many ways this is a seminal moment when one of the "best" of the MSM was willing to engaged the "despised" left. Although I can relate to Todd's position of the toxic nature of the political terrain over these issues, Greenwald teased out some very significant admissions, some unconscious on Todd's part.

The most pertinent really is the quite apparent "bleed in" of Todd's arrogance and mixture of his own disdain for the seriousness of the events mixed in with what he tried to say was just "reporting" of the administration stance. Grenwald trapped him in his personal investment in a conventional view.

Second, the use of the term "from 30000 feet"is a virtual admission of capitulation by Todd of the rejection of the rule of law. Todd admits that either political necessity or expediency or some combination of both renders the rule of law irrelevant. In a way this has always been true in America for the elites, but we are in a more naked and corrupt era than other cycles so it is more visible.

Third, and perhaps most damaging, Todd seems unaware of how media complicity over the years and the disdain for the importance of and marginalization of progressive thinking in a conservative era has lead to, encouraged and damaged severely the areana of discussion. None of this developed in a vacuum. That Todd blithely used the frame of "left vs right" and words like "cable catnip" betray his own unconscious prejudice and self importance in refusing to report the issue with the significance it deserves. This influences and leads to

the corruption of the debate that Greenwald has so ably reported on tirelessly through the years. I don't think Edward Murrow would have supported Todd's position in any way, shape or form. That's how far the media has regressed.

I commend Todd for his courage in coming to the table. I deplore his incessant circular reasoning and his inability to admit his bias in his stance. I generally happen to like Todd but his limitations are endemic of the virus that the Washington and MSM media culture has become- a group of whores. (Generally-there are still fine people working against the grain.) There is no other way to put it.

My hope here is Todd emerged from this somewhat reflective and perhaps chastened a bit, and maybe some shift will occur. Maybe not. The idea of "realpolitik" can blind people to how they discuss events on the air, which was part of Greenwald's main point.

I can't help but think how sad at the moment where we have arrived in this leaves us. I am struggling greatly with any feeling of worth for this country's leadership, much of its people and attitudes, and what it has become. Perhaps what is happening is necessary, some dissolution of present dysfunctional forms that just can no longer serve so the something different can emerge. At least that is the hope I retain after all that has been let loose from this Pandora's box.

I plan to write this to Todd also. Thanks for the interview.

Small world. Del Rio was just about 15 or 20 minutes by backroad (or moonshine trail) and has some of the pointiest hilltops around. I know a lot of people down that away but I didn't go in the service in Tennessee. I joined in Missouri and went to St. Louis for indoctrination. There's a wild bar down there smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Not recommended for the meek or the strange (and if you weren't born and raised around them parts all yer life, then you were strange). I lived in Chuckey, about 20 miles this side of Johnson City. The birthplace of Davey Crockett was about a mile upstream from me on the Nolichucky River. Down there in Del Rio (south along the foot of the mountains from Chuckey) the French Broad river flows. Very nice country. A lot of Afghani came from those parts and I'm talking about the peaceful kind (along with mushrooms, wild ginseng and "ramps"- a wild onion sort of plant that tastes sort of like garlic.) I went to a "wild game smorgasbord" down there when they'd have their "ramp" festival. Them folks will eat anything.