I don't want to beat this to death, but I think the media establishment jumped the shark, and that this kind of thing -- the spin becoming detatched completely from reality -- is dangerous. It's not just bad for my candidate, it's dangerous for the country, for all of us.

Here's some video from the crowd's perspective.

It's rally, and a high-energy one. The fact that so many establishment interests want to choke off this kind of excitement about participation in the political process confirms in my mind the importance of not allowing this to happen. Howard Dean started something, and this week it came close to being crushed because the mass media was able to sew the seeds of doubt. "Maybe this guy really is too much..."

There are two ways to look at what happened. One is that there's a strong anti-Dean bias in newsrooms around the country. I tend to think that to be a bit conspiratorial, so I look at the the other way. Matt Drudge was able to do his thing, providing an irresistable pellet of a story that caught on like wildfire among a press corps who were predisposed to playing up supposed gaffes from Dean.

The problem is, this is far more chilling than any conspiracy theory. This would suggest that the press corps is fantastically lazy -- in that they were willing to repeat a 15-second soundbyte without getting the context for themselves -- and/or willing to blow with the wind no matter what the facts are. What I don't understand is why no one from the press, and I mean no one, not even on NPR or PBS, stood up and said this was bullshit, that the conventional widsom being peddled was wholly unsupported by the facts. This kind if thing is suppsed to matter if you call yourself a journalist.

My guess is that most players in the newsmedia game are in one way or another intoxicated with the power they weild. We report, you decide. As A-stock said in the post below, perception has a way of becoming reality, and if you've come up in the world of big media, you've been the sole source for most people's ability to perceve events they don't see first hand. You've been a master of the universe.

That era is drawing to a close. No matter what the outcome of this election, the newsmedia establishment took another step towards oblivion this week. I would expect this spin from people like Drudge, Limbaugh, Rove and Dean's rivals for the nomination; but to see it repeated thoughtlessly and without a care for the reality of the situation in every single media outlet in thr country was truly chilling.

Meanwhile, you might want to read Bush's remarks to the press pool. This is not a joke. We're not scaremongering, this is really happening.