The issue has never been one of religious freedom or attitudes toward Islam," [said] Prager, who is Jewish. "The issue has been from the outset honoring the most important text of American history.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

I don't think politics as entertainment is the issue, really, so much as Lefties on the Web don't tend to "carry water" (as Rush recently confessed he did) for anyone.  Progressives will take pot shots at centrists, whom they perceive as lacking fortitude - vacillatory and ideologically weak, while centrists will decry progressives as fantasists or hippies.  Conservative Democrats are left on the outs with both other branches, hanging, as they often do, on the social fringes of the party, with the other guests discreetly pointing and chin-jerking and wondering why those folks even want in the door, let alone up on the dais with the big names.

Even within the progressive community, recent days have highlighted a schism regarding language: when or whether to use certain words, the price we pay for indulging in them, and whether it is worth risking the entire production for the satisfaction of garnering the highest ticket price on the block.

So, while echo chambers certainly exist on both ends of the political spectrum, left-leaning chambers split their audience among varying factions in a way Republicans have not experienced in the last dozen years.

Additionally, sites like Limbaugh and NewsMax offer very little (being charitable with that) to anyone who does not espouse their particular world view.  They chase off anyone not religiously married to their dogma, skewing the reading demographic toward their own party.  Of course Rush's readership is vastly more Republican - frankly, I'm shocked anyone not identifying as Republican reads his schtick.  I'd be interested to see the political affiliation claimed by the 21.5% of his visitors who say they aren't Republicans.

I'd also wonder what he said during the survey period that may have caused non-Republicans to go looking for transcripts, but maybe that's just me.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of entertaining sites focusing on left-leaning politics.  What none of them do, however, is march lock step to a piper's tune the way Limbaugh and the Standard and NewsMax do.  We pipe our own music, hoping to attract something more substantial than our own echoes.

And while I cannot speak for every lefty blogger out there, no one I know has ever stooped to water carrier for anyone.  We may not have had much during the last twelve years, but we did have our ethics.