via Steve Gilliard : ... ... One of the great tricks of conservative pundits was to talk about ANY topic. No matter what it was, they had an opinion, got face time and then book deals. They saw this as fertile ground to extend the debate. We have to engage these issues and bring new perspectives on them. If you don't have an opinion on the latest circus, your opinion on more serious matters will not count.

You don't have to spend every day repeating Eonline, but you have to understand the culture, even the vulgar parts, to change it. If you do not engage the debate at hand, you will become irrelevant. Even if the debate is not a big deal in the end. Walking away, as we did so many times before, is no longer an option.

I found this posted over at Daily Kos last night and Kos says: "I actually skipped over stuff about runaway brides and the Michael Jackson trial finding them uninteresting. But in one fell argument, Steve has convinced me otherwise."

Steve put into words what I have been trying to do at times, but wouldn't have expressed it as insightfully. People ask me why would I put up a clip or story from Amerian Idol, The Grammy's, The Oscars, Barry Bonds, Michael Jackson, South Park...etc...Gilliard pretty much answered the question.