The Workday Liberal

So I'm doing my typical bopping about the intertubes and I have come across the perfect dichotamy between the vibrant ever changing and highly entertaining lefty blogosphere, and the old, dead, dried and crusty, ho hum MSM.

First, one of the sites the I make a point of regularly visiting is the Huffington Post. To be honest I don't get a lot of news from Huffpo, but I have found them to be a great base from which to launch about other sites of interest to me. Well Huffpo has a headline up reading "Bush Overruled Own Spy Chief To Nix Deal With Dems", which in turn links to Talking Points Memo.

TPM is another site I visit on a regular basis. They have been front and center on the Justice Department scandals since well before the entire affair was a blip on the MSM radar. Now they routinely get inside scoops from great sources and quite often you will see a story splash on TPM one day and be carried by the mainstream news the next. I suspect today will be one such example.

From my perspective this is just a microcosm of the liveliness and vibrancy of the lefty blogosphere. Heres another little bit of an example. I just got a Gmail from Blue Gal trying to help another blogger initiate a blog swarm next Monday, Aug. 6. In case that date doesn't ring a bell, that is the anniversary of the famous Presidential daily briefing titled "Osama Bin Laden, Determined To Strike In U.S".

So you see that my impression of my lefty blogging buds, both bigtime and not so big time (but B/G is breaking out bigtime) is such that I feel motivated. It really is a joy linking around and taking all this in, always wondering what the next link will load... and in an admittedly very small way being a cog in it all.

So then I bop over to MSNBC, and I'm confronted head on by several reminders of exactly why I so dislike the so called mainstream media these days. Their front page at the time was dedicated to losses in the stock market. Ask me which interests me more... The President over riding his own spy chief in order to try to score cheap political points on an issue which both sides agree needs to be resolved for national security... or a set back in the stock market? I think you probably know the answer to that.

Then, just to top it off, I link over to the MSNBC political section and see a banner picture of Senator Ted Stevens, with a large headline in prominent display which reads: "Stevens May Have Violated Law".

Well... DUH! I mean there must have been a reason the freaking FBI searched his residence. I mean judges don't typically just pass out search warrants on U.S. Senators just for no apparent reason. Of COURSE "Stevens May Have Violated Law".

Actually the story goes into yet another aspect of the law which Stevens may have broken: paying a personal employee from Senate funds. The headline should read Stevens May Have Violated Other Laws"!

And the weird part of this is that MSNBC is about the least objectionable MSM outlet going right now! I'm not looking to pick on them. In fact maybe it's because they are the least objectionable that I find cause to object to them more than the other MSM's out there: because I spend more time at MSNBC, and therefore have more occassion to pick on them than the other folks.

But the juxtaposition could not be clearer. TPM has a fresh, hot and very interesting piece of breaking news... and the MSM is breaking out the yawns and making me want to pull my hair out. Blue Gal wants me to write a story on something which I find very interesting, and the MSM wants to put me to sleep. I only check in with the MSM out of a sense of duty... just to see what they are reporting on.

So to my brothers and sisters in arms in the lefty blogosphere who keep me so entertained daily, with informational and motivational post's, I just want to give a big thank you for doing what you do so well. I'll see you at the blogswarm on Monday!