OT: insights from Glenn Greenwald

[ginnyinWI]

about the rw smear machine. Worth reading the entire post, but I liked this part:

We are in the position we are in as a country because there has been really no effective counterweight to the lowly, deceitful and filth-peddling right-wing network which has dominated our political discourse and the media's coverage of it. That is clearly changing -- slowly perhaps, though still meaningfully (which is why the Edwards campaign felt sufficiently comfortable in defying these pressures, and it is also why -- as Time's Ana Marie Cox surprisingly acknowledges (while linking to FDL) -- the most astute and insightful reporting on the Libby trial (and so many other news items) is coming from the blogosphere, not the national press).

and this:

Peter Daou wrote what I think is one of the definitive articles detailing the mechanics of that process (Tom Tomorrow provided the illustration), but whatever the details, its dominance simply cannot be reasonably doubted. The last two presidential elections were overwhelmed by the pettiest and most fictitious "controversies" (things like Al Gore's invention of the Internet and Love Story claims, John Kerry's windsurfing and war wounds, John Edwards' hair brushing and Howard Dean's scream), and our discussions of the most critical issues are continuously clouded by distortive sideshows concocted by this filth-peddling network. Their endless lynch mob crusades supplant rational and substantive political debates, and the most wild fictions are passively conveyed by a lazy and co-opted national media.

http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2007/02/significance-of-edwards-story.html

[blm]

1. Nice of you to admit that LW has NO MACHINE IN PLACE to counter RW machine - so

who lost 2002 and 2004? Dem party leaders and left media refused to acknowledge their shortcomings and failures and conveniently blame one person - Kerry.

[beachmom]

2. Exactly. 2004 was a watershed year, however. When people STOP

scapegoating Kerry, they will START learning the lessons.