Media Limbo

"Too many people run away from the label. They whisper it like you'd whisper 'I'm a Nazi.' Like it's dirty word. But turn away from saying 'I'm a liberal' and it's like you're turning away from saying that blacks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus, that women should be able to vote and get paid the same as a man, that McCarthy was wrong, that Vietnam was a mistake. And that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaeda and had nothing to do with 9/11.

"This is an incredibly polarized time (wonder how that happened?). But I find that, more and more, people are trying to find things we can agree on. And, for me, one of the things we absolutely need to agree on is the idea that we're all allowed to question authority. We have to agree that it's not unpatriotic to hold our leaders accountable and to speak out.

"That's one of the things that drew me to making a film about [Edward R.] Murrow. When you hear Murrow say, 'We mustn't confuse dissent with disloyalty' and 'We can't defend freedom at home by deserting it at home,' it's like he's commenting on today's headlines.

"The fear of been criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was [expletive]. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, 'We were misled.' It makes me want to shout, '[Choice expletive here], you weren't misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.' "

So Sandra Day O'Connor says we could be headed for a "dictatorship" if Republicans keep attacking the judiciary and only NPR's Nina Totenberg who was there at Georgetown U.--not exactly a stealth locale) and MS's Keith Olbermann seem to care? The blogosphere is demanding an explanation.

"The bloggers were right, of course," says Slate's Jack Shafer . "A retired justice needn't predict the end of democracy to make news. All she has to do is burp. So, why didn't the U.S. press react more strongly to her comments?

"Obviously, the media should have. The press has its excuses. It doesn't like to form a pack to chase somebody else's story -- until it's damn good and ready. The press is also lazy about breaking news on Friday -- and doubly lazy about picking up a radio story. Your average reporter (and average media) has better things to think about on Friday than work. But if you assume that the press gave the O'Connor story a bye because they're part of the Bush's royal court, you're wrong."

Salon's Walter Shapiro uses that GOP get-together to ruminate on "the Republican fear and loathing of Hillary Clinton in the White House. The New York senator inspires a level of demonology so intense that you could probably have gotten the GOP delegates in Memphis to believe that she wants to model her presidency after the regime of Pol Pot.

"This brings us to the Hillary Paradox. Almost all the doubts that I hear about her political prospects come from downcast Democrats, who are convinced that she will romp to the 2008 nomination and then prove unelectable in November. Republicans, in contrast, seem almost fatalistic in their conviction that she would be a formidable foe, which is why they are so eager to find a champion who could unite the GOP in holy war to smite the Clintonian infidels. Never in modern political history can I recall a time when both parties were equally petrified that the same person (Hillary Clinton) might win a presidential nomination.

"McCain is the face card in the Republican deck. His only potential rival for that honor, Rudy Giuliani, did not deign to come to Memphis. While Giuliani polls well, the former New York mayor will have a swell time explaining to social conservatives why he moved in with a gay couple when his then wife kicked him out of Gracie Mansion for philandering. But McCain offers the Republican Party the political version of that classic hold-up question: 'Your money or your life?' The Arizona maverick voted against most of the Bush tax cuts on the grounds that they were unaffordable, but still embodies the best chance that a GOP president can continue to live in the White House."

And it's ultimately all about winning, isn't it?