Summary: (Originally broadcast May 4, 2007.) Politics has always been dirty, nasty, bare-knuckle affairs. In the American two-party system, one side always blames the other for whatever ails the country. The new twist in the 21st Century is the emergence of political Web sites and political blogs in particular. Anyone with a point of view can get a free blog from blogger.com or wordpress.com and be online telling the world what they think about anything, anywhere in about ten minutes or less. Some of these new voices are surprisingly thoughtful, literate, and inspiring. Some are just idiots with cyber-megaphones. Some are on the right, some are on the left, but there is no doubt that the best of them and some who are just louder than the others will wield unprecedented influence going into the 2008 Presidential primaries and election cycle. One of the rising stars of the genre is John Amato, agent provocateur of the best-named blog of the bunch, CrooksandLiars.com.
