The Nation and a few alternative print media sources still speak truth to power, and so does the left wing blogosphere. An isolated few conservative alternative media magazines and an isolated few conservative bloggers have started doing it. Credit should be given to David Brooks for his editorial yesterday. Bill O'Reilly makes a mockery of the phrase by pretending to do it. A few "left wing" editorialists like David Scheer get a little exposure in the print media and on NPR.  Air America and KPFK speak truth to power.

For the most part, the RWCM, both in print and over the airwaves, are Apologists For Power. It is a monumental disgrace the way the corporate media has abandoned their traditional role in letting the American people know what their political leaders are doing both to and with the political process.  

Does anybody know the origin and have a history of the phrase "speaking truth to power"? (Is there a liberal William Safire in the house?) I've been very curious about it ever since I first noticed it on that episode of The West Wing.

What a shame.

look under "quick hit"
http://www.liberaloasis.com/archives/032005.htm#032205

These bills don't defend against "leftist totalitarianism," per se, but they promote the University as a place where students must be protected from teachers who introduce controversy into the classroom.  

The counter argument is that the presence of controversy in the classroom is a sign that academic freedom is thriving in a university.  

Saying that a student needs to be protected from controversy in order to experience academic freedom is a bit like saying that a quarterback needs to be protected from practice in order to win in an actual game.    The whole point of university education is to give students the ball over and over and over again in challenging ways where they can get it wrong and still not get hurt.  Then, by the time they leave the safe environment of the classroom, their minds have become sharp enough to throw touch-downs in the real world.  

You should have heard Limbaugh going on about this today.

Never mind polls showing Congress shouldn't interfere, etc.  Those are narrow issue points.  WE ALREADY KNOW that we win on issues.  But they win on the larger strategic narratives.  We know all these things and here we are doing it all over again.  

We're arguing the details of their lies instead of reaching the broader, general public with a larger narrative that reinforces public acceptance of the benefits of underlying Progressive values.