At National Review Online today, Bill Whittle does a tremendous job dissecting the content of Barack Obama's 2001 interview at Chicago public radio station WBEZ.

But he also has some insight into the source of the audio and some choice words for a media elite that has spent nearly two years failing to do even the most basic digging into the Democratic candidate's background and associations.

Here's what Whittle reveals, and most of his related comments:

I happen to know the person who found this audio. It is an individual person, with no more resources than a desire to know everything that he or she can about who might be the next president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world.

I know that this person does not have teams of highly paid professionals, does not work out of a corner office in a skyscraper in New York, does not have access to all of the subtle and hidden conduits of information … who possesses no network television stations, owns no satellite time, does not receive billions in advertising dollars, and has a staff of exactly one.

I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. .....

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you “journalists” out there, a hell made specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not.

That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn.

You’ve earned it.

That they have.

Whittle also expresses fear that the press, rather than dealing with the substance of the Obama interview, will go after the person who released the tape and that person's family.  That fear, based on the press treatment of Joe the Plumber, is unfortunately justified.

Related commentary on the tape release is at BizzyBlog.com.

—Tom Blumer is president of a training and development company in Mason, Ohio, and is a contributing editor to NewsBusters