Some days, Somerby just gets right to the point about our inane press corps. Today is one of those days. Read the whole thing, but here’s the crux of it.

Sadly, Johnson’s profile—and Orth’s inane report—give us a (partial) picture of our multimillionaire press corps. Liberals need to come to terms—badly—with what this picture means.

For ourselves, we’ve never met Orth; we’ve chatted with Russert a couple of times, and yes, he’s the nicest guy in the world. But multimillions affect even nice people, even those whose spouses started out in the Peace Corps. Human nature makes it plain: You simply can’t have a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps. That’s especially true when that multimillionaire press corps works the way our current group does, with narratives invented at the top, then parroted by the eager young climbers who hope to be rich players too.

What happens in a middle-class nation when multimillionaires run the press corps? Citizens are handed perfect monstrosities, of the type they were served on last night’s Hardball. Chris Matthews is a Welch-endowed multimillionaire too; he too summers, with Jack, on the Island of Swells. In what follows, we see the kind of brain-rotted swill he dished to the rubes and the peons last night. Once again, Matthews was deeply troubled by videotape in which Hillary Clinton could be seen clapping her hands. He spoke with Julie Mason, Jonathan Capehart and Matt Continetti, a trio of fresh-faced, eager young climbers who would never dream of telling their host that he’s a certified nut-case.

The scripts run like background noise, all the time, setting the tone for everything. It goes like this: Democrats lie…they’re no fun…they can’t handle the job…they are phonies…Republicans tell the truth…they are fun….they are tough…they are regular people…We media celebrities are just like you, listen to us, we are just like you…..

The scripts are mind-numbingly dumb. However, promising pundits know to follow the yellow brick road, which leads to Nantucket.

As Somerby reminds us from time to time, the press corps has made a joke out of our national discourse. No doubt they have caused grave harm in the process. If you doubt this or still believe in the dreaded “liberal bias”, please read The Daily Howler and may the scales fall from your eyes.