A reader writes:
Please keep prodding the mainstream news organizations on their total failure to vet Palin--not, as you say, because of her specifically, but because their incredibly, inexcusably timid practices are a real threat to democracy in America. If there's one thing l feel like I've realized after the Bush years, it's that there isn't much standing between us and the collapse of our way of political life. One of those things is supposed to be the press, which is why it was honored in the First Amendment. But the current practices of the press don't convince me that under the right circumstances they wouldn't basically (to use a Simpsons reference) "welcome our new [adjective] overlords" if it would win them sweeps week.
Because Abraham Lincoln was right when he called America the "last best hope," and we need to protect our democracy.
I will never forget the conversation I had with a leading journalist as I asked him about the Palin Trig story in the middle of the last election campaign. His view was that there were many unanswered questions but I should leave the matter be, because it would "hurt your reputation" to pursue it. This remains the prevailing narrative among Washington's MSM. They care much much more about their reputations and their money than with getting at the truth. And they know who they are.