The New Journalism, R.I.P.

The invaluable Glenn Greenwald has composed a comprehensive epitaph for the pathetic pretensions of the pajama-clad poobahs.

These right-wing bloggers operate at a level several beneath the National Enquirer, literally. They simply fabricate facts and recklessly and maliciously launch serious accusations against the media whenever doing so advances their political agenda.

They leap on any innuendo or gossip from the Internet swamps and tout it as fact whenever doing so bolsters their ideological view or can be enlisted to destroy the credibility of a journalist who reports unpleasant facts. They desperately seek out any basis for attacking media reports that cast doubt on their Leader and his policies. They repeat government and military claims as fact and then accuse the media of "lying" whenever their reporting contradicts Official Statements from Our Leaders.

There's much, much, much more, including some excellent linkage.

And now for a fearless prediction about where the warblogosphere will turn after all this: back to what they do best; namely, non-stop, nakedly partisan mudslinging lacking even the slightest pretense of objectivity. Already the moniker "Nazi Pelosi" is bubbling out of the fetid fever swamps of FreeRepublic et al.; it's only a matter of time until it goes "mainstream."

The American people demonstrated on November 7th that they are no longer interested in extremist right-wingerism. So, yesterday, did America's most popular Republican politician, once a cause célèbre of the right-wing élite. No less a personage than Arnold Schwarzenegger is now saying things like:

Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I had an experience that opened my eyes. And what was it that I saw? I saw that people, not just in California, but across the nation, were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that looks beyond the old labels, the old ways, the old arguments.

[...]

The people are disgusted with a mindset that would rather get nothing done than accomplish something through compromise. I want to thank the Legislature for taking action this past year on behalf of the people, not politics. I thank them for taking that risk.

The question is not what are the needs of Republicans or Democrats? The real question is what are the needs of our people? We don't need Republican roads or Democratic roads. We need roads. We don't need Republican health care or Democratic health care. We need health care. We don't need Republican clean air or Democratic clean air. We all breathe the same air. When California 's leaders have worked together, we have accomplished good things.

[...]

Ladies and gentlemen, we face important issues that should unite us. I believe we have the opportunity to move past partisanship . . . past bi-partisanship . . . to post-partisanship. Post-partisanship is not simply Republicans and Democrats each bringing their proposals to the table and working out differences. Post-partisanship is Republicans and Democrats actively giving birth to new ideas together. I believe it would promote a new centrism and a new trust in our political system. And I believe we have a window to do it right now.

[...]

Centrist does not mean weak. It does not mean watered down or warmed over. It means well-balanced and well-grounded. The American people are instinctively centrist . . . so should be our government. America's political parties should return to the center. They should return to the center where the people are.

"The center" also being a place recently vacated -- or, one might argue, never occupied -- by the mindless regurgitators of hard-line GOP policy over in Pajamaland. And if you think their rhetoric over the past few years has been nasty, you ain't seen nothing yet.