Cribbing from Andrew Sullivan, I think I’m going to launch a Zell Miller Award for Outstanding Illiberal Denigration of Civic Institutions. First nominee is PowerLine’s Deacon for his horror at E.J. Dionne’s suggestion that, as Deacon puts it:

a non-elected institution, the MSM, must curb our democratically elected executive and legislature.

Almost as if the press were some sort of “fourth estate.” Where could Dionne have possibly come up with such a radical, wacky, undemocratic notion? Er, other than from pinkos like Thomas Jefferson, or just about any democratic theorist since the time of the American founding, that is. In any event, how does Dionne expect our leaders supposed to get anything done if citizens are, like, informed about what they’re doing? And who are these “citizens” anyway? I don’t remember anyone voting for them, either.