...and this is not much of a defense, and perhaps this is a sign of the times, but her snarky humor has been one of the most cutting mainstream commentaries on the Bush administration over the past 6 years.  Of course, when she turns her gaze to something else, she has to get just as snarky.  The sign o' the times (or N.Y.Times) is this:  our most public and effective critics of the Bush Administration have been comedians:  Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Al Franken, and even, certainly before the last election, Howard Stern.  

However, comedy makes any serious consideration of serious issues very difficult, if not impossible.  By the way, I would very much recommend the hour-long interview of Gore that Dave participated in, it gave Gore the opportunity to talk outside the box of the sound bite.  Judging from the bloggers' questions of Gore, and the reaction of Slate, etc., the most serious reporting is being done in the blogosphere.

Since protecting our democracy is a very serious issue, the comedians (including Dowd) can't make much a contribution, except to lampoon Republicans.  Thom Hartmann on Air America Radio seems to best of those who are serious in anything approaching mainstream media, no?

Looks like Gore is gonna be on the Daily Show Tommorow.

David, you said it very well.  I don't think the problem is just with the elite pundits, either.  I found myself gravitating away from journalism and toward academia because too many of my journalism colleagues seemed to be insidiously anti-intellectual.  

What I mean by that is they tend to suffer from an intellectual form of ADD.  Usually these folks are pretty bright and curious about a vast range of subjects.  Alas, they can also be quite shallow, e.g., fixating on the horse race aspects of election campaigns.  Bring up a theoretical idea and it tends to be dismissed as idle chatter by pointy headed losers.

That caricature does have some basis in reality, but it is overly glib and dismissive.

Global warming will not be stopped unless we start to think differently about some pretty fundamental issues, such as the nature of democracy in a world where one generation can do permanent and widespread damage to the next without its consent.

Scholarly theory matters.  Gore understands this better than 95 percent of today's public figures.  This is but one reason why he is such a remarkable statesman.

There's a difference between evidence, and credible evidence.

Cold Fusion
Hydrogen
Cosmic Ray Theory
And info from high paid lobbyists like Fred Singer in general.

I mean come on.
I'd love to see some credible arguements put up.
(Mainly since that lets me know where the competiion is at)

But most of what you keep putting up are merely strawman arguements.