There is a great post today by Digby, that details the broken-ness of both the funding system for the war, and the atrocious reporting of the same.  

It's a blackmail scam that the Bush administration has been pulling successfully since the beginning of the war. Here's an article from 2004, that could have been taken right out of the headlines last month:

I believe this goes hand and hand with Al Gore's book Assault on Reason.

It's amazing when you look at the political commentary right at this second. On my side, the liberal side, we are outraged at the iraq capitulation to the Bush administration.  You look at any site, this is what is being talked about.  DailyKos, MyDD, TalkLeft, etc.

However, if you go to the right side of the blogosphere - Hot Air, RedState, The Corner - you basically get 24 hours of outraged posts, regarding the immigration bill.

It's ironic that BOTH sides can be so deeply unhappy with their washington leaders, at the same time. No big point here, I don't draw any lesson, simply an observation.

Just thought I would introduce the phrase "Whack A Mole", to the ongoing discussion of the media distortion of reality, in regards to liberals and progressives.

Peter Daou wrote the seminal theory on this, on The Triangle.

Simply put, without the participation of the media and the political establishment, the netroots alone cannot generate the critical mass necessary to alter or create conventional wisdom. This is partly a factor of audience size, but it's also a matter, frankly, of trust and legitimacy. Despite the astronomical growth of the netroots (see Bowers and Stoller for hard numbers), and the slow and steady encroachment of bloggers on the hallowed turf of Washington's opinion-makers, it is still the Russerts and Broders and Gergens and Finemans, the WSJ, WaPo and NYT editorial pages, the cable nets, Stewart and Letterman and Leno, and senior elected officials, who play a pivotal role in shaping people's political views

I believe this still is the progressive operating premise - that a reality-based progressive/liberal movement, that wants the truth told, still needs, on some level, the participation of the media and the political establishment.

I've been looking at the back and forth between the Edwards and Obama supporters, and it makes me realize two things.

a.  What the heck - I am SUPER-EXCITED by both of these guys.  While clearly the main team here at Chez MyDD have an Edwards crush (and it makes sense, as Edwards has gone out of his way to embrace the Netroots), they have used this crush to immediately jump on any "mistake" that Obama has made.  It must continually be pointed out that, legislatively, Obama IS the most progressive, in terms of his votes.

b. Is there anything that can be done, about this much back and forth, this early, for primaries that are almost a year away?  Isn't anyone but me worried about burnout?  I'm sick of presidential horseraces RIGHT NOW, much less what is going to happen next year.