"Thanks to YouTube–and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails– it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price, or to run under-the-radar smear campaigns without being exposed," contends Arianna Huffington, whose website pulses with a constant, two-way debate of news and opinion. "The McCain campaign hasn't gotten the message," she added, "hence the blizzard of racist, alarmist, xenophobic, innuendo-laden accusations being splattered at Obama."

"Many of the media outlets influencing the 2008 election simply were not around in 2004. YouTube did not exist, and Facebook barely reached beyond the Ivy League. There was no Huffington Post to encourage citizen reporters, so Mr. Obama’s comment about voters clinging to guns or religion may have passed unnoticed. These sites and countless others have redefined how many Americans get their political news."