There they go again.

I'd previously bemoaned the fact that there's little we can do to check the power of the lying mainstream news media. They've got enormous power to shape the state of the nation, and they cannot be voted out of office.

Now I'm outraged all over again.

Because I signed up to get a ticket to see John Edwards when he brought his slimy snake-oil medicine show to Our Fair City, I now receive e-mails from the Kerry/Edwards campaign.

Here's what I received yesterday from "Joe Lockhart":

This morning, The New York Times published a story that offers further proof of how the Bush administration's incompetence and arrogance has endangered the lives of our troops and the American people.

Even before invading Iraq, the Bush administration knew that a huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, contained nearly 380 tons of deadly explosives. Despite the fact that they knew exactly where this facility was and what was there, they took no action to secure or protect the site. Due to the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration and their incomprehensible failure to plan, these explosives have disappeared.

Let me put this in perspective -- the bomb that took down Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland used less than one pound of this same explosive. There were 760,000 pounds at Al Qaqaa.

. . .

Our troops are the best-trained and best-led forces in the world, and they have been doing their job honorably and bravely. The problem is the commander in chief has not being doing his. George Bush refuses to recognize his failures in Iraq, so he can't fix them and is doomed to repeat them.

Thank you,

Joe Lockhart
Senior Advisor

The letter closes with a lengthy P.S. with the suggestion that you talk to your local media about this story and includes a series of questions aimed at the Bush administration.

And now we know that it's all another lie.

Go here, here, here, here, and/or here for details.

I'm not surprised to find CBS's dirty little fingers all over this either.

The big shocker--the one that should cause a major international incident, is the revelation that the NYTimes story could be based on a fraudulent letter from the IAEA and its Director General, Mohammed El Baradei, in order to bring down the President.

If this is true, . . . well, doesn't the IAEA have more important things to do than attempt to influence the US Presidential Elections?

So we've got foreign leaders of the International Atomic Energy Agency working with anti-Bush media in collaboration with the Kerry campaign to bring down President Bush and ensure a Kerry victory.

I would like to call this treason.

Last night I got a phone call from someone in Maryland who was calling Wisconsin voters on behalf of the Kerry campaign. Not exactly like UK citizens e-mailing Ohioans to vote for Kerry, but it bugged me nonetheless.

The pleasant-sounding voice on the other end of the phone said that John Kerry needs my help. I said "I'd like to help."

"You would?"

"Yes," I said, my temper rising, "I'd like to help him lose. I'd like to help him lose and lose big because John Kerry is one of the most dishonest men who ever ran for office, and the Democratic party is corrupt. I would love to see the Democratic Party cease to exist and be replaced by the Libertarians. (That's how annoyed I was!) If the Democratic Party dissolved tomorrow, I would be smiling!"

"You'd be the only one," said the voice.

"I don't think so!" I said, with barely constrained rage. "I hope you lose!" I repeated, and to cap it off I said "Stay in Maryland!" and I hung up.

Yeah, not my proudest moment.

In retrospect, I should have used the opportunity to question the caller about his support for John Kerry and see if I could turn him to the President. Not likely, but hey, if they're going to call me and talk politics, I might as well take advantage of the situation.

I'm sort of hoping someone calls again.

But back to the lying, scheming, traitorious mainstream news media.

What can we do about them? Something has to be done. I was between blogs when the CBS "Rathergate" scandal broke, but I was glad to see how bloggers were able to debunk the story less than a day after it aired.

But I'll ask it again: why does Dan Rather still have a job at CBS? I don't think anyone will ever face consequences for the fake memo story, and I don't think anyone will face consequences for this media-generated "October Surprise." The mainstream news media has too much power, and they're answerable to no one.

Glenn Reynolds discusses the future of the Blogosphere in this column and suggests that blogs will grow both more and less significant over the next few years.

They'll grow more significant because more people will be reading them, and -- at least as important -- more people will be writing them. That will expand their impact considerably. On the other hand, they'll grow less significant, in a way, because they'll grow more ordinary. Like other communications media, from newspapers to email, they'll just become part of the background, and their particular thread of impact will be less noticeable.

Is it possible that blogs have already peaked? That "memogate" was the apex of their influence, and it's all downhill from here?

Glenn closes on this note:

I think we're already beginning to see signs of that backlash, in the wake of the humiliation visited on Big Media by RatherGate -- and the press establishment's general lack of enthusiasm for free speech for others (as evidenced by its support for campaign finance "reform") suggests that it'll be happy to see alternative media muzzled. You want to keep this media revolution going? Be ready to fight for it.

In what way, I wonder.