Glenn Greenwald writes a great post that delves into how the Media has been the decider of who is "sober and serious" and who is a "wacko." Glenn exposes yet again how little intelligence and information the Media actually possesses and how the "serious and sober" designees are anything but. His discussion of Joe Lieberman's appearance at the insane John Hagee's church and the speech Joe delivered there is required reading.

But I do think Glenn is missing one very important development in this all - it is something I have been talking about a lot this year - the irrelevance of the Media and the Beltway Elite in the shaping of public opinion on the issues of the day. Any reading of public opinion polls demonstrates that the Media pundits and Beltway Gasbags have been utterly tuned out by the American People. From Hiatt to Broder to Ignatius to Brooks to O'Reilly to Klein to whomever you wish to name, their impact on public opinion has dropped to near zero.

They are enraged by this development and they have taken to attacking Democratic leaders like Harry Reid in overt and brutish ways in reaction. But as Reid's letter to Fred Hiatt attests, he is not worried nor is he listening to the Media or the DC Gasbags on this. He has figured it out. They are irrelevant now. How this process has occurred is not entirely clear yet. But I am convinced it is true. See also this post from Markos on "the fair fight." I think the irrelevance of the Beltway Media is central to this development.