Charles Pierce on Alterman's blog: "Molly [Ivins] made a point often of how much she liked good politicians and believed in the political system {...} That's not the way we do political commentary -- or politics, alas -- very much any more. What do we get? Michael Kinsley stuffing his IQ into a jar and defending Scooter Libby on the grounds of Business As Usual. Two weeks of idiocy about a caesura in a remark made by Hillary Clinton in Iowa a flat year before anyone votes there. (And let's not get into the fact that the very thought of an HRC candidacy seems to have driven Chris Matthews into some serious brain-fever). Snarky "Messiah Watches" about Barack Obama. The worst thing you can do at the Kool Kids table is be either sincere or serious. Sorry, you pack of smug, insufferable bastards -- a war's gone bad and the country's a mess, and you never were funny, anyway, not like Molly was. So go and take your little slambooks and wreck some other profession for a while. The grown-ups have work to do."
The Freak Show at work.