Dear David Broder,

You sir, are a role model.  You are widely known and well-regarded as both "the dean of political journalists" and as a Pulitzer-prize winning author.  I'm sure you agree this status compels you to follow the highest ethical standards of your profession.  

As a member of The Society of Professional Journalists, you also know you are obligated to follow their Code of Ethics.  It is with dismay I note you apparently violated many of these important ethical principles in your recent column, A Way Back to the High Road?  

After reviewing the attached list of particulars, I hope you will promptly correct these mistakes, thereby avoiding permanent damage to your reputation and credibility.

Born on this day in 1934

America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own, they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits, the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up.
Bill Moyers

I happened to be reading Moyer's Blog early this morning looking for his interview with Public Citizen's Joan Claybrook which I missed when it aired on PBS last Friday on "Bill Moyers Journal."

The subject of the segment was lobbying and lobbyists and their pervasive influence on our political system.

I have a large measure of respect for both Moyers and Claybrook and an enormous loathing for lobbyists and their destructive influence on MY country and I was disappointed to have missed the program.

Fortunately for me I learned from Karl Rove that Al Gore invented the internet a few years back, and that invention led to the discovery of You Tube where I found a clip of the segment and I feel very good about the modern world this morning.

Detroit HARDBALL!!  December 11, 2006
Indie Journalism, social commentary, and liberated speech

Written and edited by Mike Madias
Published by the BlueJean ThinkTank

hardball@madias.org

Jeff Gannon and Talon News, the Downing Street Memo, and fake TANG documents are just the tip o' the berg. Each day the lords of Blogdom offer insights on stories and factual tidbits that would otherwise be dismissed, overlooked, ignored, downplayed, or outrightly covered up. We should all be very thankful for this new medium - one that seeks to fill the canyonic gaps created by mainstream news outlets.

As this investigative vigor grows within the blogosphere, so too does the thirst for usable tools that ease the process of investigative journalism.

In response to that, Political Cortex has created an extensive resource page targeted toward helping investigative online journalists do what they do best - dig out the truth.

Today, we are happy to add a powerful new tool - one that assists in the process of requesting documents via the Freedom of Information Act.

FOIArequest.org is a project of the People for the American Way and offers this introduction on their website:

 (First time posting here, so all comments appreciated. Also posted at Daily Kos.)

In the past year or so, I've tended to take a much deeper look at a lot of the stories that are written, particularly on policits. I do have journalism in my background and I consider myself something of a student of the media anyway, so this is also an interest of mine.

Are the hacks back? Has the Wurlitzer turned up the volume? Or have the Freepers awoken from their hibernation to rate these pieces up? Or perhaps I'm exaggerating... it was all a dream.

Judge for yourself, over the bump...

This board will serve as my wall of shame, or s--tlist of people who pass off GOP propaganda as either research or news.

This post will be a whole directory of journalists, politicians, academics, prominent blogs, and other prominent figures who either:

--Ignore basic facts;

--Omit important information;

--Tells lies about Iraq.

If anybody tries to use such sources on me, I will simply reply that their source is not credible because they do not have their facts straight. Therefore, why should we believe them when they make their case? Anybody is entitled to their own opinions. However, people are not entitled to their own facts when trying to make arguments. Here are the people who, for one reason or another, make my wall of shame for not telling the truth about Iraq:

3... 2... 1... Blastoff!

Months in the making. Blood. Sweat. Tears.

But now we’re here and we are ready to ROCK!

But who are we? We’re Al Rodgers, ColdFusion04, Devilstower, Hermod, Sdf, Bill Hare, Drew Johnston, mcjoan, SusanG, Bob Kendall, Frederick Clarkson, NYBri, Btyarbro, Georgia10, S. M. Dixon, Myself, and the soon-to-be Cortex community!

Together we will fight against the forces of evil, and injustice and for the progressive ideals of Jefferson, Adams, Paine, Madison, Allen, and Franklin.

These men founded a Progressive Nation. They were America’s Founding Fathers -- a group of the staunchest progressives in our nation's history -- men of enlightenment, ardent supporters of church/state separation with a fervent passion for decentralization of power and freedom of expression. So too were the founding documents they authored and the principles by which they acted.

In recent years, many Americans have come to forget these facts. Political Cortex is here to remind them.

But we can’t do it alone. This will require the unified voice of millions. And as that voice grows throughout the web and across the nation, the Cortex will be here to offer new light and pioneering ways to augment that collective voice.