To many journalists today bloggers seem to be the new plague.

Someone does something or says something "the mob" doesn't like and within days there's a virtual lynching.

But Paul McMasters is wrong. The problem is not that bloggers are attacking.

The problem is that no one's defending. And no one is getting underneath the mob, finding its sources, and placing the same spotlight on its leaders that they place on the powerful.

In his heartfelt commentary on the subject McMasters fails at that job, too. He wants "them" to stop, but to let "mainstream media" go on, as before. It comes off as special pleading.

In so many recent cases -- Ward Churchill, Larry Summers, Eason Jordan -- major institutions have fallen on their swords when attacked by a few bloggers. This despite the fact that the people in question were merely doing what bloggers themselves do, speaking their minds.

Without stating it in so many words, McMasters is comparing the blogger mentality to that of Salem villagers in the late Arthur Miller's classic "The Crucible."

The witch trials ended only when people had the courage to fire back when attacked, to get under the mob to the conspiracy behind the curtain. This is something CNN in particular has been unwilling to do, and McMasters hasn't done it here, either.

Don't just cry foul. Fire back with facts. Defend someone's to annoy bloggers as fiercely as bloggers defend their own rights. The right to attack brings with it the responsibility to defend.

Anyone without the courage of their convictions quickly finds they have none. The fault is not with the "blog mob" but with those who cry victimhood yet retreat under its gaze.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.