now it's greenwald who annoys me...

He's young, good-looking, and bright as all hell:

National journalists, because they and their lives and careers are so integrally woven into that system, instinctively believe [in the virtue of the Beltway punditocracy]. And that, more than anything else, renders them incapable of fulfilling the core journalistic function, which is to report on our government adversarially and to view it as a target of scepticism. They are far too integrated into it and dependent upon it to do anything other than view it as intrinsically good and therefore reflexively defend it. And that is true no matter how many foreign outside-of-the-Beltway excursions David Broder courageously undertakes. They are spokespeople for the royal court of which they (and typically their spouses and friends and close associates) are such a critical part.

Bloggers, by stark and vital contrast, are (along with blog readers) almost uniformly people who function outside the Beltway system, i.e. they are the "ordinary Americans" whom people like Broder and Klein claim to represent. And they are largely motivated by animosity towards that system, by a belief that it has become broken and corrupt. For that reason, they are uniquely positioned to perform the adversarial and watchdog functions which our political press is intended to perform but which -- due to its becoming far too integral a component of the Betlway system -- it has now almost completely abdicated.

Aww, shucks, folks, I'm speechless!