WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE? from the Prospect

Frank Rich has a very shrill column touching on Armstrong Williams, the White House’s propaganda operations, and the reprehensible, coddled insularity of the punditry club that’s really worth reading. Boy, is it shrill. read on

Rich pillories the “hard-hitting” co-hosts of Crossfire for lobbing marshmallows at Williams during his January 7 appearance, caressing him with chummy bromides and puffery. Indeed, I’d say that the most serious issues that the Williams story raises have little to do with the bottomless hackery of a single lame VRWC peon. The two real stories here are this White House’s regular use of taxpayer money for openly partisan propaganda campaigns, and the grotesque clubbiness and complacency of a punditry class (particularly its cable news component) that no longer has the ability to recognize the problem to which it is so central. The latter problem abets the former -- it has for the last four years.