Dear Cable Asshats,

I am aware that under Clinton Rules journalism, fallacy = news and logic and reason = opinion for the opinion shows and if you do it any other way, you'll lose precious ratings points. I also get that, at a personal level, some of you desparately need to see Obama exposed as a fraud and a corrupt con man, because otherwise your worship of "savvy" and disbelief in and disdain for integrity are just the character flaws of small-minded twits rather than the marks of a great reporter. I likewise understand that your job is to generate content, to fill up airtime, not to report actual news--which, in any case, is hard to gather, hard to write, expensive to produce, and too factually and morally complicated for your viewers. I also get that now that a Democrat is in power, each and every little psychotic fantasy that some Republican politician or operative is willing to voice is "news" while observing that the available evidence indicates there is no story is "opinion" to be voiced on the opinion shows.

I understand, in short, that good faith doesn't enter in to the discussion. You need Content, and so there is no explanation, no level of transparency or disclosure that won't lead to more troubling, troubling Content-generating questions.

Still, let's pretend like we live in a world where journalists have standards and think they should report news. Let's do it just for the sake of developing my argument, okay? Because, I'd like to ask a few basic questions.

First, why exactly, is it that Obama and his team's dealings with Blagojevich regarding the appointment of a successor to Obama's senate seat is the lead story rather than a sidebar? That's the fundamental question I am confused about. Why am I confused? Well, let us break my big question down down into smaller bites.

Is there anything that we know of now that Obama or his people did in connection with the actions identified in the indictment that is more newsworthy than what Blagojevich has actually been accused of doing? Would you agree with me that, based on what we know, the answer to that question is "no, there's nothing?"

Well, then, you must also agree that the story, if any, is in what you do not know? Right? There are unanswered questions, and that is what is so Very, Very Troubling that it makes this a Story That Won't Go Away, correct?

Okay, well then, is it not then incumbent upon you, the asshats highly professional and ethical journalists, to articulate exactly what these unanswered questions are, rather than merely reporting that unspecified unanswered questions remain and that mere existence of these Troubling Unanswered, yet unspecified Questions casts a Very Troubling Shadow, yea, dare we say a Taint, over the nascent Obama Administration? Can we agree on that?

Would you also agree, then, that, by definition, unanswered questions about the Obama team's associations or communications with Blagojevich regarding the Senate seat are only "troubling," and, thus, newsworthy, if they pertain to possible improprieties? That would seem pretty obvious, wouldn't it? And "impropriety," means something that was illegal, immoral or otherwise unethical, right? So, you're not worried or in any way troubled by the fact that Obama has not come out and categorically denied that Rahm Emmanuel and Blago had a fifteen minute conversation about their mutual admiration for John Adams' most recent operatic triumph, "Dr. Atomic," right?

And you would also agree that an unanswered question is only "troubling" and thus newsworthy, if it has some reasonable grounding in the available evidence, correct? And can we agree that "reasonable grounding" means either that existing evidence indicates that something untoward actually occurred or else, actual evidence exists from which one could reasonably infer, without undue speculation, that something improper occurred?

For example, one could speculate that Obama got on the phone with Blagojevich and had a thirty minute discussion about kidnapping and enslaving nubile young white women from Chicagoland Catholic girls schools and selling them to Saudi oil sheiks. That would certainly be very, very troubling, very scandalous, and, particularly by the standards of your industry, exceedingly newsworthy. However, other than the Fox morning show, you would never deem Obama's failure to specifically and categorically state that no such discussion ever occurred either relevant or newsworthy because there is not one subatomic particle's worth of evidence from which one could even infer that such a conversation might have occurred, right? Right? Okay, wipe that dopey, dreamy, wistful look off your faces and pay attention, to me. You would agree that that's not newsworthy, because there's absolutely no evidence to support it, right? RIGHT?

Well then, please specifically identify what illegal, immoral or otherwise unethical acts you believe that Obama, or someone working for him, could possibly have committed based upon the information already known to you, and, specifically identify from what known facts you infer that such acts may have occurred.

Because, unless and until you asshats responsible journalists do that, you are nothing more than obscenely overpaid mean girls maliciously spreading viscous, evil gossip in a gigantic high school cafeteria.

And, yes, I realize that I'm just being a dour old wet blanket, but I think its appropriate to point out that although this kind of thing was jolly and profitable fun during the Clinton years, this ain't then. Far be it from me to wave the flag of national crisis and demand that you stop being journalists and, instead, become the President's transcriptionists. We've run that experiment. It didn't work out too well, not that any of you noticed until a big girl named Katrina shoved your faces into it.

However, the fact of the matter is that we are at the beginning of the most serious economic crisis since the end of the Great Depression, and the jury's still out on whether the "since the end of the Great Depression" qualifier will turn out to be correct. We also have a war or two ongoing, though God knows you don't think those are of much interest either, these days. Given all that, it just seems a tad irresponsible to start distracting the guy who has to get us out of all those messes with demands to prove himself innocent of having done things you won't accuse him of. Indeed, if one might be forgiven an invidious comparison, one might characterize such conduct as gnawing away at the legitimacy and capacity to act of the soon-to-be President at a moment of great national and international peril like rats gnawing holes through the bottom of their ship.

No, I'm certainly not suggesting that you stop looking for a story. Root, investigate, dig. That's what you're supposed to do and, frankly, if you'd done a little of it during the years 2000-2008, we might not be in some of the messes we're counting on Obama to get us out of. (Though, as long as we're being all frank, if that were still your job, very few of you would be doing it here, because most would look at the "Was Obama involved in Blago's pay to play scheme" angle as pretty scanty diggings in which to mine news.)

No, what I am suggesting is that in times of great crisis, it behooves the press to at least distinguish between news and innuendo and, most particularly, not to fill hour after hour with hyperventilation about innuendo regarding the possibility of innuendo. What I am suggesting is that you should STFU about it unless and until you have an actual story. You know, like Bradlee made Woodward and Bernstein do back in the 70s.

Yeah, I know. It is to laugh. Guess I'm just another silly, angry leftist kool-aid drinking blogger who doesn't want you saying bad things about my Messiah. Yeah, that must be it so just feel free to forget I even said it.

(Wow, these open letters are certainly an effective medium for communicating ideas to important people.)