Glenn Greenwald:

That really is why we are in the situation we confront in Iraq. Because Richard "Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise" Cohen and his ilk demonized and caricatured the Howard Deans of the world as pacifist, amateur, naive, stupid, frivolous, dangerous French hippies even though everything Dean was saying was true and prescient and everything Cohen was saying was false and idiotic. And they're still doing that.

Atrios:

Someone finally gives Dean some props.

On a more depressing note, while hunting for something I came across this article Yglesias wrote. In May. Of 2004.

I can't believe we're still having the same goddamn conversation.

I strongly doubt that we'll see much of an uptick in accountability or integrity from the existing class of media figures and political pundits. They made their career choices a while ago; they live in that other world now. However, these people will probably continue to slide ever further into irrelevance.

I think we'll look back on the late '90s and early 2000s as a uniquely dark time in America, in which the social discourse was dominated by a broadcast media controlled and financed by a relatively small clique of elites. This isn't to suggest any kind of conspiracy, but rather to point out how we were (and still are) led by a small and compromised cultural bubble which was easily manipulated by a sophisticated and well-financed reactionary political movement. Add that special spice (9/11 flavors), and you can pop off a really stupid war, I suppose.

If the shoe were on the other foot -- and a well organized progressive political movement was doing the influencing -- President Gore might have rammed health care down everyone's throats. We must protect ourselves from bioterrorism after all, and 50 million people who are afraid to visit a doctor because of costs makes a ripe target. Those Health Insurance cartels are objectively pro-terrorist, see?

That might have been marginally better, but it might not have worked out either, especially if it was done in that forced and propagandistic way. The point is that doing things by manipulating a small culture of social elites and stupifying the masses is a poor way to run a society. It didn't work in Soviet Russia, it didn't work in Imperial France, and it didn't work in Rome or any other place either, at least not for very long.

Bigger and more diverse pools of empowered decision-makers make better decisions, and can react more effectively to changing circumstances. They're more effective, sucka. In network-speak, it's all about fitness. Meritocracy now!

Get it? Good. Now keep it. Let's never let this shit happen again.