—-should the media and the adult commenting public give to public servants?
It is one thing for politicians and political operatives to promote or attack, but the Fourth Estate lets itself be used far too often, not without criticism, but mostly without loss of privilege.
Brain Lamb and the folks at C-Span provide a valuable service, and as well as congressional coverage, give forums to both left and right outlets and advocacy groups. But during the Bush Presidency, when Conyers was going through his ‘impeach Bush’ phase, he held mock ….mock…committee hearings having nothing whatsoever to do with official Congressional business,complete with mock ‘witnesses’, and C-Span televised them. Even the captions at the bottom of the screen did not make it clear that these were mock proceedings. Kind of an Orson Welles type deal if you weren’t in on the joke.
The point is that even people and outlets who think they are being ‘fair’ and open minded and courteously deferential are, way more often than is pointed out, part of the problem. Moe’s expose of the media’s abdication of it’s responsibilities, indeed it’s abandonment of its profesionalism, is parralleled in so many aspects of the culture it is not funny. From the scientific community (we “believe” in AGW) to the Education community (we have to mold our children into what WE want them to be and do in the future) to even the religious community (we have to adapt and adopt), the sacrfice of principle and the forgetting of purpose are everywhere.

….those who would throw down the mantles of liberty and Republicanism in the gutter of politics and let the Progressives walk all over them, yeah we have had too many nice fellows. But the problem is broader and more cultural than that. Moe’s example is of a media that either doesn’t understand, or was never taught, or refuses to do what the press is supposed to do. The new recruits in the party may be gung ho, but if they are not grounded in the document, the charter, they can be as easily perverted as the press. I only wish Antonin Scalia had been available to welcome the incoming class starting aboutforty years ago.