The tyranny of moderation
If we're going to be honest with ourselves, we have to recognize that the more extremist voices like Glenn Beck are not the only problem when it comes to the red-baiting of progressive leaders. It's also the tyranny of conventional wisdom that dominates the for-profit press.
Joe Klein represents the view common in corporate-owned news outlets when he argues that certain views should never be discussed or even considered. Viewpoints too out of sync with chatter at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon are routinely dismissed as ridiculous and unprintable.
Conservatives get around the ban by crying about "liberal media bias" and use talk radio to push their views into the rest of the press. So we have hate-filled rantings from fringe conservatives like Ann Coulter, Michelle Maulkin, and Glenn Beck in major news outlets, but much more reasonable viewpoints from the radical left are almost completely absent.
When was the last time you saw your major daily newspaper run a column from Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, or Amy Goodman? They're far more popular figures than the moderate and center-left commentators that supposedly provide "balance" to the far right in most news outlets. If they did try printing those columns, most editors will eventually give in to the shouts of "media bias" that inevitably seek to censor out any opinion or statement of fact that supports a liberal viewpoint.
With the resignation of Van Jones, the massive censorship of strongly progressive ideas in the corporate press is being extended to service in government.