Categorical Aperitif

Robert Parry:

But how did the United States of America get here? How could the most powerful nation on earth with a sophisticated media reach this place where a comedian is needed to point out how crazy the political system has become?

I cannot attend the Rally to Restore Sanity today, but I'll be checking in the next days to see how it's spun by the corporate media. Parry explains the hostility that's already shown:

Many centrists are uncomfortable with Stewart’s rally for a different reason. They may find his jokes amusing, but they reject his more serious message – that the U.S. political/media process has gone quite literally mad. If you’re a Washington-Post-or-CNN-styled journalist, you simply can’t accept that the system you have helped sustain is insane.

To do so – and to be honestly self-critical – would require acknowledging that you sat on your hands in the face of George W. Bush’s violent delusions of the past decade because to do otherwise would have put your salary at risk. For these centrists to accept the need to restore sanity would require them to admit they tolerated madness.

Anne Applebaum's heart can sink all the way to freaking Atlantis for all I care.