Napster Runs for President in '04
I'll admit it. I'm starting to like Frank Rich. I hated the guy back in his "Butcher of Broadway" days, and his asinine defense of Clinton when the only question left was "swallow or spit." But this piece is good, until he tries to tie the bow in a pretty knot:

Should Dr. Dean actually end up running against President Bush next year, an utterly asymmetrical battle will be joined. The Bush-Cheney machine is a centralized hierarchy reflecting its pre-digital C.E.O. ethos (and the political training of Karl Rove); it is accustomed to broadcasting to voters from on high rather than drawing most of its grass-roots power from what bubbles up from insurgents below.

Frank Rich does not know shit about the topography of the Internet. If he thinks those dweebs at Dean's CircleJerk websites represents anything threatening to the Bush campaign, he really oughta look at how they regularly get the Hell beat out of them in the blogosphere, blogville, whatever. Karl Rove is not dumb. He can count past his fingers and toes. And the "right-leaning" side of the 'net is the one generating traffic that Mad. Ave. would kill for. They are the Kings and Queens of the Hit Counting Machines.