As you’ll hear in the video, I didn’t quite catch what Senator Nelson said to me at the end of this impromptu interview…

Here is the transcript of the last part of the video (thanks Dave!):

You asked me about the Constitution last week, it went out on a blog, I don’t talk to bloggers.

The conversation continued after I turned the camera off. I told him that I never asked him about the Constitution; that I did ask him if he knew how many of the people in his state went bankrupt because they could not pay their medical bills. But I never blogged that…

Anyway, this is another example of politicians hating the Fourth Estate. Notice that phrasing – I didn’t say they hate the institutional media. Nelson loves seeing himself on TV. He loves being the center of attention. He loves that the media fawns over “centrists” and can be counted on to assume that the best solution to any problem lies somewhere between the bat-shit insane position of the Glenn Beck-led Republican Party and whatever the far-left Tom Friedman is suggesting. And generally speaking, that’s exactly where Ben Nelson and the rest of the “centrists” (mostly Democrats these days) situate themselves.

The Fourth Estate exacts accountability. The institutional media (as it exists today) can be counted on to value access above all else. That means hard questions, pressing follow-ups, and reporting any facts that contradict the treasured “centrists” or demonstrate the transparent, vapid, and destructive substance of the “centrist” position… well, that species of reporter is quite rare today. A sort of evolution has occurred; today a new species is rising. They are called “bloggers”.

Hopefully we’ll displace the less adaptable media soon, along with the politicians that are doing everything they can to maintain the status quo.