RUSH: Let me give you a little history. I guess this program started in 1988, and within a few short years this program — and it was just me for a while, before the whole talk radio thing took off for everybody else — for the longest time, things said by me on this program were linked by the mainstream press to violence in America, and that reached its pinnacle when President Clinton attempted to blame this program for the Oklahoma city bombing. When called on it, the administration of Clinton backed down and gave some silly story that they were only talking about the Michigan militia short-wave radio network. Throughout the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, throughout many similar such episodes, this program has been accused of inspiring violence because of the so-called hate speech that the left assigned to mainstream conservatism, and throughout all of these years, these attempts have occurred repeatedly by the mainstream press, as a means of discrediting this program.

Well, I can safely tell you that words uttered by me or anyone else on this program have never even caused injury. They have not caused physical injury, no deaths associated with this program, only a number of saved lives, only a new number of inspired Americans, and that number is growing all the time. I don’t want to hear from the mainstream press, this failing bunch of blind-as-a-bat liberals who I don’t even think know what planet they live on. I don’t want to ever hear once again from any of them that criticism of judges is going to lead to violence against judges. I don’t want to hear from them that things said on this program are going to cause riots or violence or anything else going on in this country, because the mainstream press can now claim that what it has done has caused death. The Newsweek riots have caused death.

Now, some people are saying, “Hey, Rush, it was the death of 15 or 17 Islamic extremists. So what? Shouldn’t Newsweek get a medal?” I’ve seen this on some of the Democrat blogs today. You can look at it humorously if you wish, and I don’t mind humor being looked at in some of these things, sometimes you need humor to relieve some of the tension and pressure that’s involved. The fact of the matter is, this has also endangered the lives of US soldiers throughout the world who are fighting to protect this country. Why did this happen? There has been all kinds of speculation about it. It runs the gamut, by the way. People say, “Well… this happened because the Bush administration wasn’t denying this soon enough.” I’ve got audio sound bites from last night. You will not believe — You will believe it. You will believe it, because these people are blaming the Bush administration for this.

Newsweek’s media allies attempting to blame the administration for not denying this soon enough! I’ll tell you why this happened. It’s very simple — and, by the way, it goes beyond Michael Isikoff. Michael Isikoff offered to resign. Newsweek said, “No, we stand by Isikoff. We don’t want anything to happen to Isikoff.” In fact, let me give you the details of this story. Mike was told he would not be sacrificed. “We are standing behind him a hundred percent,” said magazine source to Matt Drudge. “We do not — I repeat do not — let this White House, any White House, make our staff decisions for us.”

How can you say that when you turn around and blame this White House and this administration and this Pentagon for your flub? You certainly accepted the word of somebody in this administration as gospel, a single source, unnamed, and it was run with, and Newsweek is saying something, “We had no idea that this would cause these kinds of riots.” How can that be? What planet are you on? “These people routinely burn the American flag; there are not riots in this country.” So what? Somebody says pages of the Koran were flushed down a commode in Cuba. Cuba must have pretty good commodes to be able to handle it. But the bottom line is — I reported this, by the way, last week — that it was some prisoner who reported doing this. But do you see the riots that result around the world in the Islamic community about this? Of course, the media’s all-concerned. “We wanted to bury George Bush. We wanted to bury this war on terror. The terrorists are victims, ladies and gentlemen, of an evil, warmongering administration. It’s perfectly understandable they would riot when the Koran is flushed down the toilet, even though it wasn’t.

It’s perfectly understandable, although we didn’t know it was going to happen. We had no clue.” What planet are you on? Meanwhile, the same press going back to 1989 and 1990, remember that great work of art – and pardon my French, but this is the title of it – Piss Christ? Remember a jar of urine featured a submerged crucifix? Remember the press of this country talking about how we need to understand this artist and what he’s trying to say, this is great art. So in this country you can destroy all kinds of religious artifacts.

You can destroy the flag, you can burn it, you can submerge all kinds of religious artifacts in urine if you wish, and you are praised. But here in this instance, militant Islamists decide to start killing people because of what Newsweek magazine wrote and Newsweek said, “We don’t understand why this would possibly happen.” If you don’t understand why this would happen, do you remember September 11th? The idea that these terrorists are somehow victims and they can’t handle some things? Why are we supposed to respect every one of their traditions?

They are blowing us up. They are not stopping. They continue to try. They’ve been doing so for 25 years – and yet they remain the sympathetic figures according to the mainstream press. Yes, that’s true, ladies and gentlemen. In this instance, it is the United States that’s at fault. In this case, the government did not vehemently deny soon enough these stories, this allegation that Newsweek made. It’s just amazing to watch this.

There’s a story in the New York Times today by Kit Seelye,” and let me find it here in the stack. It’s not the headline. The headline of the story: “Newsweek Says It’s Retracting Koran Report.” Listen to this lead: “After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration and others, Newsweek magazine yesterday went beyond an apology and retracted an article published May 1st that stated that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had tried to rattle Muslim detainees by flushing a Koran down the toilet.” Kit, is this really – Kit Seelye – “After a drumbeat of criticism from the Bush administration”? That’s why Newsweek decided to retract the story? How about the fact that it was wrong? How about the fact that it was wrong!?

The New York Times is incredible today. We’ll have details. Nightline last night was unbelievable in its attempt to defend the press in this. I’ll have details for all this as we unfold the program today, but to me it is not surprising. I have been on the bugle call, if you will, for 15 years about the mainstream media and who they are — and in this case, they wanted the story. This is just like Dan Rather and the forged documents at 60 Minutes. They wanted this story. That’s why only one source, unnamed, not checked. They wanted this to be true. They want Abu Ghraib to be true. They want to continue to make this. This boondoggle is far worse than whatever happened at Abu Ghraib. I know, “When CBS lied, nobody died.” But, you know, Mr. Snerdley, it’s not the nature of the evidence. It’s the seriousness of the charge that bothers me. It is the intent. In both cases there was real intent to do damage to the United States of America – not just George W. Bush, but to the United States of America, and you can’t just blame Isikoff.

What are the other criticisms of this program, going way back to its inception, and one of the current criticisms of the blogs is, “Well, you can’t trust those people. There’s no filter. There’s no editor. Why, those people can just say whatever they want to say and rile people up! Who knows what kind of violence they’re going to cause. This is not safe for America.” Riot? Really? Well, who edited Isikoff? Isikoff just can’t get a couple lines published at Newsweek. Who’s the editor? Who let this go? I’ll tell you why.

The editor at Newsweek was irrelevant because everybody at Newsweek wanted this. I don’t care when you say they wanted the scoop; what they wanted was to embarrass the United States of America because they disagree with the Iraq war policy. They disagree with the war on terror. They are of the opinion, they have a template: the United States is evil, particularly the US military; and since Abu Ghraib, every prison detention center is evil, and they operate on the template. There is no curiosity. There is no objectivity. There is no question. All it takes is one government source — and, by the way, who is this person? Why don’t they name this guy? This guy or woman, whoever, needs to be outed as well, because this person has brought disgrace on Newsweek. Newsweek still wants to protect this source. If this had happened to me — and it never would have — but if somebody gave me some data like this, I would tell you who it was that shafted me — and you can’t leave out the Clintons in something like this. Let me just put something out on the table. Who was it that broke the Monica story? Well, who wrote it? It got spiked at Newsweek; leaked to Drudge.

It was Isikoff. Isikoff was the expert on the Monica story. Suppose somebody in the Clinton orb, and there are many of them still in the Pentagon, many of them still in the state department, suppose somebody in the Clinton orb decided to tell Isikoff, “You can run with this. It’s absolutely true.” There’s a desire to trust people from the Clinton years, and bammo, Isikoff has just been spiked. Who knows what’s going on here? What we do know is that they willingly printed something untrue, then they tried to just say they were sorry for it and not retract it. Then they retracted it.

Now they’re saying we still think it’s true. Why do they think that? It’s not that they think it’s true. It’s that they know it. They believe it because that’s their template when it comes to the United States of America. The media is losing audience and readership and circulation in this country faster than your water from the bathtub goes down the drain. There is new survey data, and I have this in the stack, it’s all coming up on the program today, about how untrusted the mainstream press is. It is so bad that pretty close to a majority of Americans actually think the government ought to censor the press and be in charge of what they can print. Now, that’s appalling, because of its inherent indication that the public education system in this country is not teaching the Constitution, but beside and beyond that, what does that tell you that Americans think of the mainstream press? That they can’t be trusted, and the government ought to be in charge of what they can and can’t say. We got a lot on the plate today, folks.

I want you to sit tight. I’m going to do my best to squeeze it all in. We’ve got lots of audio and there’s lots of other stories out there, too, and I’m going to try to move around. I don’t want to spend all day on this Newsweek thing. I don’t want to spend all that much time on it. You probably heard all there is to say about it, other than what I say — and I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on it because it is what it is and we all know. We all know why Newsweek did it. We all know why CBS did it. We all know why the press is circling the wagons to defend Newsweek. But I’ll tell you, folks, when you’re losing and when you’re being humiliated and things are not going right, if you don’t examine yourself to figure out what the problem is, if you’re only going to try to affix blame elsewhere you’re going to keep losing. And that’s what’s going to happen to them. This is just another in a long line of episodes illustrating once and for all who these people are. What’s causing it? Competition. Their monopoly is over and in the sense that the monopoly is over — and they don’t like competition in the free market — it’s causing them to show themselves as they always have been.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Don’t forget: After the Columbine school shooting, who was to blame then, according to the mainstream media? I’ll bet we could find a cover story on it at Newsweek. I don’t know for sure. Remember how the NRA got blamed for Columbine? The left in this country, the media and everybody else included, has forever attempted to discredit its critics by blaming them and their words and their ideas for violence, mayhem, death, rape, torture, pillage, what have you — and I ask you: Who is it? Whose work has now caused death and causes continual real threat to American soldiers above and beyond the normal circumstances in which they find themselves in wartime?

Newsweek magazine, the mainstream press. And how many of you are hearing, “Well, this is really strange. You know, Isikoff is a great reporter. Newsweek has a great reputation.” Not in my book. Newsweek is no different than any of the rest of them. They have written trash, garbage and lies about me and other people I know. This is not a surprise to me. Newsweek, CBS, ABC — they’re all the same, folks. They have the same mind-set. They have the same people. They have the same educational background. They have the same cultural existence. It’s all the same people. The names change, but the people are the same. Their outlook is the same. It’s identical from one place to the next and you can see them now as they circle the wagons to attempt to defend Newsweek — which is what they’re doing. Oh, yes, with the appropriate caveat that this was a mistake and an error, and something that they regret — and they’re now going to “tighten their systems.” Jayson Blair? Dan Rather? How long is the list of people who make it up in the mainstream press?

How many times have those same people written story after story after story and done study after study after study, on my inaccuracies, and the inaccuracies of bloggers and the inaccuracies of others in talk radio? It’s common for them because the only way they can compete is to attempt to discredit us — and I want to say one other thing. I don’t want anybody to misunderstand. I am not defending these wacko Islamists for rioting at the same time. I don’t want to be one of these people that says, “Well, what do you expect them to do?” Yes, in terms of justifying it. “Yeah, we expect them to do it.” But we’re in a war with these people. Notice how perfectly their signs are printed over there? Have you noticed how perfectly the protests against Bush signs are printed by Islamists? They have been machine made, these signs that they’re carrying, demanding — now they’re out there saying they don’t believe the Newsweek retraction. They believe it, folks. They think it’s just another government attempt to smear a media organization.

They think Newsweek is being cowed by the over-powerful American administration, so the retraction is not accomplishing anything in terms of relieving the pressures that it caused. So now the White House is saying, “You know, Newsweek you better do some more here.” Well, of course, the journalist response is, “No, no, no, no! We are not the story. We simply report.” Newsweek, you’re the story, babe. You are the story big time — and the dirty little secret is that you all want to be the story. It’s always about you. There are so many damned introspective media TV shows and radio shows and newspapers and columns these days, you can’t keep up with it. You think about yourselves first, second and third. It’s always about you. So here you are, you’re in the midst of the story, you have caused death, you have caused riots, and now you seek to blame the administration for that, for not denying your allegations sooner? How can you trust the Bush administration, I thought?

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Rich Lowry, National Review Online today, has an interesting piece. Just share with you the lead. He says, “How many stories has Newsweek written about the Bush administration allegedly skewing intelligence by relying on raw, insufficiently sourced data? How many times has it lamented that these mistakes have hurt the US abroad? Too many times to count.” Hello, Newsweek! “Back in November 2003, Newsweek complained in a cover story that Vice President Dick Cheney ‘bought into shady assumptions’ leading into the Iraq war, partly because of his ‘dire view of the terrorist threat.’ In its Koran story, Newsweek itself bought into shady assumptions, partly because of the media’s dire view of the U.S. military.” That’s exactly right. The US media hates the American military when it’s run by a Republican president. They distrust this country and consider it to be the focus of evil in the modern world, because we are rich, and we are prosperous, and any time you see a picture of militant Islamists, they are running around in dust bowls.

It’s hot and it’s sweaty. They are ill-clothed, they look like they’re from three or four hundred centuries ago — and thus to liberals they look like poor victims and so we must extend to them our compassion and our understanding, even when they want to burn the American flag or kill Americans, because, after all, when they kill 3,000 Americans, the liberals will convene a conference and say, “Why do they hate us, and what can we do about it?” So (interruption). Yeah, a “good-faith mistake,” and “no bias.” Good faith mistake, my rear end!

You know, “CBS lied, nobody died. This is a good-faith mistake.” They’re just trying to spin it and cover themselves up here. Look, I said just a moment ago that when you’re in trouble — I don’t care if you’re an organization, or individual; if things are going wrong and mistakes are being made and you are losing what you own and what you have, be it your business, be it your life, whatever it is — you’ve got to examine yourself. In addition to trying to blame everybody else, if you really want to fix the problem, then what are we doing wrong, you have to ask, what am I doing wrong, what are my own contributions to my own failure? In fact, most people ultimately end up doing that, in addition to, you know, the human nature response is to blame everybody else for it first, but then after awhile, if you really want to fix it, okay, you analyze yourself and your actions, what am I doing wrong?

But liberals cannot help being liberals. When a person or an institution is under an attack and culpable, wouldn’t you think they would change and mend their ways, at least trying to figure out what the reason for the attack is? Well, you would be wrong because you’re not a liberal, you can’t think like one. When a liberal is attacked, the response is more of the same. How in the world after the CBS’ story do we get the Newsweek story? How in the world, if they learn from mistakes, how in the world does this happen? Let me give you four illustrations. The UN, judges who disrespect voters, Howard Dean, and Newsweek. The UN is taking heat for what? Corruption, ineptitude, and incompetence. So what does it do? Name Zimbabwe to the human rights commission? Zimbabwe is the biggest flaunter of human rights this side of Josef Stalin!

The judicial system is taking heat for defying voters. The voters are upset. The judiciary is out of control. People want to rein it in. What does the judiciary do? It tosses out a Defense of Marriage Act in Nebraska approved by 70% of the voters, claims it’s unconstitutional, because the voters don’t know what they’re doing. Howard Dean is taking heat for his off-the-wall rants. What does he do? Pop up with another one. He wants to send Tom DeLay to jail for something he isn’t even charged with. Even Barney Frank is shocked. Dean said the other day, “Just send Tom DeLay back to Texas. Let him start serving his jail time.” He’s not been charged for anything! Mainstream media taking heat for its anti-war bias. They have been taking heat for their anti-war bias and their anti-American bias and it’s one of the reasons they’re losing audience big time. What does it do? Newsweek accuses our military of flushing the Koran down the toilet. Fifteen deaths, hundreds wounded so far, damage to our national image is immeasurable.

When they’re accused of doing something, they just do it again — and pile it on. It’s like flipping you the bird. “Oh, yeah, this is what you think we’re doing wrong? Well, try this, America! You think Dan Rather made it up, forged documents? Try this!” Then Newsweek comes out with this little ditty, and isn’t it interesting? We always talk here about projection. If you just follow the left and just pay attention to what they accuse others of doing, you’ll find out what they’re doing, be it the media, be it Ted Kennedy, be it Harry Reid, whatever, they accuse people of dirty tricks, lying, cheating, stealing, they’re doing it. You can make book on it. Let’s go to audio sound bite two as we start the roster today. Today show, Daniel Klaidman, Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief. Matt Lauer said, “Did you get pressure from the White House, Dan?”

KLAIDMAN: The only pressure we got was our own sense of responsibility here. We had made the decision to acknowledge the mistakes long before the White House uttered a single word about this.

RUSH: Really? Really? Well, this is news to me. I thought the White House was now to blame for the fact that this story got published. I thought it was responsible because it didn’t deny this soon enough. Now, Newsweek, somebody in the administration, somebody in the Pentagon is reading Newsweek and they probably have the same reaction to Newsweek that I have to the New York Times. You open it up; you read it, read the story. “Hmm, wonder if that’s true,” you ask. You don’t automatically believe it anymore if it’s on CBS, ABC, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek. You don’t believe it anymore. “Wonder if this is true?” So investigate it! There’s been enough shenanigans going; had to investigate it. How can they deny something right off the bat without investigating it? So they start investigating it. Now it’s up to the administration to make journalists honest? It’s up to the Bush administration — the hated, despised Bush administration — to protect the reputations of people who have been trying to destroy the Bush administration? The gall!

And then, of course, this is taking off on Kit Seelye’s piece in the New York Times. “Responding to criticism,” blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, “from the administration in other quarters, Newsweek retracted…” No, this guy just said he retracted it because it was wrong, and yet here’s Matt Lauer’s question. He must have read Kit Seelye today. Did you get pressure from the White House, Dan? Now, here’s the next question. Lauer says, “You know, there’s suspicion in the Muslim world. They say we’ve heard these stories before from detainees released from G’itmo. Why shouldn’t I believe it’s still occurring and it did happen but that Newsweek retracted this story because of the administration’s efforts to win the hearts of the Muslim world?”

KLAIDMAN: All I can say, Matt, is that we have been reporting on Abu Ghraib, on the interrogation controversies aggressively, carefully for a long time, we will continue to do that. That is our mission, and it’s hard for us to figure out why people believe what they believe in these instances, but we’re going to continue with our mission.

RUSH: It’s hard to believe what people believe? He’s admitting he has no clue who militant Islamist terrorists are. They’re actually allies. They hate United States just like the American media does. Maybe the Islamists have a little more hate than the American media does, but they still are on the same side of the middle aisle on this, and then this business: “All I can say is we’ve been reporting on Abu Ghraib and the interrogation controversy as aggressively…” Yeah, you have. You won’t let it go. You will not let it go, and it’s another reason that you are losing readers and subscribers and viewers. It’s because the American people get it. It took about a week for the story to sink in, and that’s it. We’re not a bunch of idiots. We know what went on there. You keep hammering this and it’s because you think that the people still don’t get it because a bunch of mind-numbed robot idiots you’ve got to run this story. Not only was Abu Ghraib bad, look what’s going on at G’itmo. Because it happened at Abu Ghraib you think the US does it in every prison.

That’s the template you bring to it, Newsweek, and that’s why this idiotic story gets printed because you believed it before you confirmed it. You didn’t even do your normal confirmation process, one unnamed source, without even a copy of the report to leak to you. Just somebody’s word of mouth. Only way that can happen to get past all the so-called filters, the editors and reporters, is you believe it. Going in you believe it, and if you believe it’s happening at all these prison institutions and installations around the world, what must you think of your country? Well, we know what you think of Rumsfeld. We know what you think of Rice. We know what you think of Bolton. We know what you think of Alberto Gonzales. We know what you think of the judges. You loved Madeleine Albright, you loved Bill Clinton, you loved all of these incompetent boobs. You loved Bill Cohen when he was secretary of defense and Clinton.

You love all these guys, all these same people in the same positions when they were in the Clinton administration, you loved them. You never questioned one thing they did. Now, Rumsfeld’s rotten. General Myers is rotten. Janet Karpinski is rotten. Lynndie England is rotten. Charles Grainer is rotten. Condoleezza Rice is rotten. John Bolton is rotten. Bush and Cheney suck. Bill Frist is bad. You think the American people can’t figure out from where you’re coming? So you’re still tracking down Abu Ghraib. Do you realize there have been already some convictions here? And they’re going to have a report? It’s over, Mr. Klaidman. You want kudos for still tracking down the Abu Ghraib story? Is this a slip of the tongue? G’itmo and Abu Ghraib, are they the same? Unreal question from Matt Lauer. He says, “The administration’s criticism of Newsweek intensified over the last 24 hours, following the so-called apology on Sunday. Do you think there’s a bit of piling on here from the administration?”

KLAIDMAN: I’m not going to try to divine motives here. They’ve got their megaphone. The media has a megaphone as well, and I’ll just leave it at that.

RUSH: Well, at least he admits there’s an adversarial relationship. Their megaphone versus our megaphone. Even in times of war when the United States is under attack and under assault, it’s the administration’s megaphone and our megaphone. Is the administration piling on? Matt, who is writing this stuff for you? Have you seen Good Morning America creeping up on you? I wonder why? Piling on? Have you heard of the 15 investigations into George Bush’s so-called disaster at the National Guard? How many times do you people have to look at the same story before you realize what you’re doing is piling on, and before you realize the American people know you’re piling on?

They know you’re not looking for news anymore. They know you’re packaging an agenda. You are packaging an agenda, be it at the Today Show, be it at Newsweek, be it at CBS, be it at ABC. I don’t care where it is, an agenda is being packaged but you’re lying about it, because you still maintain in front of all kinds of evidence to the contrary and a newly informed intelligent audience that you’re objective, and they know that you’re not anymore.

This is just the latest example. So what do you do? We can predict it, because you have a template. You blame the administration for not denying the story soon enough and now piling on poor little Newsweek. You’ve only tried to destroy George W. Bush how many times? How many times combined, by the time you add up all these efforts that the media went to, all the media went to these efforts to destroy Bush over who knows what it is — and you still pile it on, and yet you can’t take it with your “big megaphone.” You don’t know what motives are? Try the truth. That’s all anybody wants from you. It’s just the truth. But more and more people are thinking you’re incapable of it because your agenda is such a filter in itself that facts that come in, that contradict your agenda get rejected.

Therefore you’re not interested in truth and more and more people know it. Take a look at your audience figures, your readership, circulation, whatever it is. Newspapers, magazines, big networks, wherever you want to go, the evidence is there. And you know what? It’s not just because I have been telling people about you for 15 years. It’s because you’ve been doing it. You have been doing it. Your actions speak for themselves. Nobody’s lying about you. We’re just predicting. You make us look like geniuses by coming through.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I cited earlier statistics on the falling trust, the declining trust that the American people have for the United States media. Some of this stuff is appalling and shocking in addition to its revelations about people’s attitudes about the media. This is a story. What is it today, the 17th? Two days ago I found this in Editor and Publisher, their website: “New Surveys Finds Huge Gap Between Press and Public on Many Issues — New survey to be released,” I guess it was released yesterday, “reveals a wide gap on many media issues between a group of journalists and the general public. In one finding, 43% of the public say they believe the press has too much freedom, while only 3% of journalists agree. Just 14% of the public can name freedom of the press as a guarantee in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.”

This is a major poll conducted by the University of Connecticut department of public policy. Only 14% of the public can name freedom of the press as a guarantee in the First Amendment! Now, folks, I don’t care what they think about the media: 14% can name freedom of the press as a guarantee in the First Amendment. Now, what do you think is happening in our public school systems? We were talking about multiculturalism last week and the week before. I’ll guaran-damn-tee you that they’re being educated on a bunch of worthless social cultural rot and not being educated about this country and its history. Fourteen percent of the public can name freedom of the press as a guarantee in the First Amendment!

“Sixty percent among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news. 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than seven in ten journalists in this sample believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy, but only four in ten among the public feel that way — and 53% of the public think stories with unnamed sources shouldn’t be published at all.” Hello, Newsweek. “Perhaps the widest gap of all, 80% of the journalists said they read blogs.” But get this: “Less than 10% of the American people read blogs. Still, the majority of the news professionals don’t believe bloggers deserve to be called journalists.” Why not? Because there’s no filter? They didn’t go to University of Missouri J School, didn’t go to Harvard, didn’t go to Columbia, they don’t have a degree? Why shouldn’t they be called journalists? They’re just sitting around telling people what’s happening.

That’s what journalism is supposed to do. They’re offering their opinions just like everybody else in journalism does. Public polling today is just the latest arm of opinion journalism. The editorial page is indistinguishable from the front page at the New York Times, in terms of content. Why aren’t these guys journalists? Because they wear pajamas? They don’t go to a big building with a printing press in it? Why aren’t they journalists? Why is the press so afraid of bloggers when less than 10% of the American people read blogs? Why are they so afraid of bloggers? Because they’re not thinking about the audience.

They’re not thinking about their readers. If they knew that less than 10% of the American people read blogs, they wouldn’t care what the bloggers are saying. They care because the bloggers and all of their other critics are getting it right — and that causes fear, and when liberals get frightened, they keep doing what they have been doing, only with more pizzazz. Nobody died at CBS because of Dan Rather, but a bunch of people died at Newsweek. It just keeps getting worse here, not better.