"And more coming."

Peggy Noonan has a great new piece about "the decline of the liberal media monopoly and the future of the GOP" at OpinionJournal.com. It's called Not a Bad Time to Take Stock.

Here's an excerpt:

I don't think Democrats understand that the Alito hearings were, for them, not a defeat but an actual disaster. The snarly tone the senators took with a man most Americans could look at and think, "He's like me," and the charges they made--You oppose women and minorities, you only like corporations and not the little guy--went nowhere. Once those charges would have taken flight, would have launched, found their target and knocked down any incoming Republican. Not any more. It's over.

Eleven years ago the Democrats lost control of Congress. Then they lost the presidency. But just as important, maybe more enduringly important, they lost their monopoly on the means of information in America. They lost control of the pipeline. Or rather there are now many pipelines, and many ways to use the information they carry. The other day, Dana Milbank, an important reporter for the Washington Post, the most important newspaper in the capital, wrote a piece deriding Judge Alito. Once such a piece would have been important. Men in the White House would have fretted over its implications. But within hours of filing, Mr. Milbank found his thinking analyzed and dismissed on the Internet; National Review Online called him a "policy bimbo."

Could Democratic senators today torture Clarence Thomas with tales of Coke cans and porn films? Not likely. Could Ted Kennedy have gotten away with his "Robert Bork's America" speech unanswered? No.

And the end of the monopoly of course isn't only in the news, it's in all media. The other night George Clooney, that beautiful airhead, made a Golden Globe speech in which he made an off-color reference to Jack Abramoff. The audience seemed confused, as people apparently often are when George Clooney speaks. Once, his remark would have been news. Once, Marlon Brando stopped the country in its tracks when he sent Sacheen Littlefeather to make his speech at the Academy Awards. Once, Vanessa Redgrave did the same when she gave a speech about Palestinians, receiving in turn a rebuke from Frank Sinatra, who didn't want some British broad telling us how to do our thing. Now, actors make their comments and it's just another airhead involved in an oral helium release. "You don't like it, change the channel," network executives used to say. But that, as they knew, meant nothing: There were only three channels. Now there are 500. And more coming.

Read the rest.

And in a related matter:

This weekend "The Journal Editorial Report" begins weekly broadcasts on FOX News Channel. The program will air Saturday evenings at 11 p.m. EST and again Sundays at 6 a.m. This week's topics include the new bin Laden tape and Congress's lobbyist problem.

Here's a complete list of airtimes for the contiguous U.S.:

EST: 11 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday
CST: 10 p.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. Sunday
MST: 9 p.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday
PST: 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 a.m. Sunday