The death of Walter Cronkite will no doubt provide, as did the death of Tim Russert not so very long ago, yet another occasion for mainstream media poodles to indulge in a surreally prolonged, fantastically undeserved orgy of nauseating self-congratulation. Once again these spoiled vapid predatory narcissistic gossip-columnists who fancy themselves eminences -- and who also seem to think we think they're cute -- will genuflect sanctimoniously to their superior standards, ethics, objectivity, professionalism, civic-mindedness, and social indispensability. Against this we can expect the usual conjuration of a rising imperiling tide of citizen journalism and criticism and organization, peer to peer, as Cronkite's shade is summoned up like a patronus to ward off the mob. All the while the Villagers will chug along in sublime ignorance and indifference to the utter superficiality, insular attitudes, preference for stenography over reportage, eager self-impressment to incumbent interests through which they have travestied the ideals they invoke in the name of Cronkite and by means of which they have brought on their own ongoing institutional eclipse. What a relief that Cronkite's demise provides such a ready pretext for the inevitable disregard by NBC that Russert's replacement on Meet the Press, scatterbrained hack David Gregory, begged for the chance to fellate now-disgraced atrocity exhibition and hiking enthusiast Mark Sanford on his show in between endless softball interviews with President John McCain and other Republican luminaries.