Truth to Power

The baby boomer generation can never get past their formative experiences. Every national issue is shoe-horned into the same overdone, tedious intellectual framework.

Every new idea about the U.S. space program, for example, is inevitably compared to the faded glory of Apollo. Every young Democratic politician must be weighed on the Kennedy scale of handsomeness and intelligence. And each newsworthy racial issue - no matter how unique - is always tinged with the sepia tones of civil rights-era struggles.

Another sacred cornerstone of their generational identity is the role the media played in Vietnam and Watergate.

Now Howard Fineman deconstructs how that former glory led the mainstream media right into the jaws of the CBS memogate debacle. He acknowledges some partisanship in the water, and even nods to the emergent blogger media. It's rare, refreshing candor.