If you told me in 2004 that Howard Dean would end up running the Democratic Party months after losing the nomination to John Kerry, I'd have said you were crazy. I think he took the job because he wants to understand the forces that defeated him.

A political party is dying before our eyes-and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about the mainstream media, which is being destroyed by the opposition.

Asked at the hearing why she hadn't pressed the FBI more closely about what it knew, or didn't know, about domestic terrorist threats, Rice acted as though the question was an odd one: it wasn't her job. Well, in retrospect, it was and now certainly is.

The notion of a neutral, mainstream national media gained dominance only in World War II and in its aftermath, when what turned out to be a temporary moderate consensus came to govern the country.

As Walter Cronkite would say, that's the way it is.

The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans.