Time for some guerilla theater

Besides another expose on Russert and Matthews, The Daily Howler also notes that Bill Clinton started to tell it like it is about the national press in a recent speech:

We listened to people make snide comments about whether Vice President Gore was too stiff. And when they made dishonest claims about the things that he said that he'd done in his life. When that scandalous swift boat ad was run against Senator Kerry. When there was an ad that defeated Max Cleland in Georgia, a man that left half his body in Vietnam. Why am I saying this? Because, I had the feeling that at the end of that last debate we were about to get into cutesy land again. "Ya'll raise your hand if you're for illegal immigrants getting a driver's license.”

However, as much as he is thrilled to see someone speak up, Somerby (the Howler) thinks it unwise for any specific Democratic candidate (or candidate’s campaign) to take them on like. Somerby says to watch out, that they (the media honchos) will circle the wagons and go after anyone who dares to try this -- and they have control of the megaphone. So I would like to see, in the most watched debates just before the primaries, every one of the Democratic candidates and every prominent Democrat nationally and locally put aside their internecine pre-primary differences for a moment for the greater good, and in the strongest words possible reinforce what Bill Clinton said: reminding people how they are getting played by a multi-millionaire press corps simply augmenting the right-wing slime machine, and how it’s got to stop. The Democratic Party needs to rise en masse and take that chance. Continuing to treat people like Russert and Matthews with kid gloves is not going to make it stop. Humiliating them as professionals before the American people may not make them stop, either – they will be resourceful in their counter-attack -- but at least it’s a bit of mass inoculation against their contrived narratives.