The sour grapes were incredibly sour on the Thom Hartmann radio show on Thursday when they led off with the news that Anthony Weiner was resigning. Broadcasting live from the Netroots Nation hootenanny in Minneapolis, Hartmann went right from an admitted sex scandal to an unproven old story from last November in the National Enquirer:

Looks like Anthony Weiner’s about to step down. John Boehner’s involved in a major sex scandal. It’s all over the page of the National Enquirer. Two different women, they’re naming the women. So this is this is shades of the John Edwards revisit.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz on Wednesday claimed recent polls finding three newly-elected Republican governors wouldn't win if elections were held today represents a turning point in American history.

Not surprisingly, his far-left guests from the Nation magazine quite agreed with him (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's no secret the traditional journalistic business model doesn't work in an era where advances in technology have increased flow and velocity of information. Those changes have rendered many forms of communication obsolete and made journalism a difficult way to make a living. 

This has concerned some on the left who are convinced the ways of the past are vital to a democratic nation, including John Nichols, co-founder of Free Press and the co-author of "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again," with Robert McChesney. Both authors appeared at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 16 to make the case for some sort of government policy to help this flailing trade and pointed to history as an example of how the media effected change. The amount of government funding they settled on was $30 billion annually.

"At some fundamental level the one thing we have to get back to is this notion that if we want an America that is fully democratic, really does confront the question of bankrupt government and a government that has other priorities, we're going to have to remember how we did in the past," Nichols said. "The greatest bankruptcy in this country was the founding on the original sin of human bondage. That was a horrible event and for the first 70 years of the American experiment, the Congress did not debate slavery."

Audio Embedded Below Fold

It's bad enough we have to bailout banks and auto manufacturers or spread around subsidies for wasteful, inefficient forms of energy like ethanol and morally reprehensible institutions like ACORN and Planned Parenthood. 

However, now a couple of the wizards of smart that have managed to land a spot in the editorial pages of The Washington Post are lobbying for journalism subsidies.

In the Oct. 30 Post, the co-founders of Free Press, John Nichols of the liberal publication, the Nation and Robert McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, suggested it's time for the government to prop-up beleaguered journalists to "spawn" so-called independent media. Nichols and McChesney make the case that newspapers are important for two reasons - one not-so important one and one arguably legitimate one. They maintain President Barack Obama believes newspapers are important and that they play an important part keeping government in check. But in order for them to sustain this vital role in our culture, they say it's time for the government to lend a hand.