On the Netroots, FISA, National Media, Obama

Chris Bowers of Open Left, in a post about the Netroots' collective complaint about Barack Obama's recent handling of FISA and the national media's opinion that speaking out will benefit the Progressives only if it doesn't result in any reduction of financial/volunteer efforts on his behalf:

".... being told to shut up and empty your wallet feels more like a mugging than a convincing fundraising ask. Campaigns are no more entitled to small donors and free volunteers than they are to voters. Rather, campaigns have to earn those volunteers and donors by inspiring people to give their time and money."

Reading Mr. Bowers' post, I have to ask myself, "Where is the imagination of the national media?" Aren't there ways to hold the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee accountable that won't result in his electoral defeat? With the sidelining of the 527 arm of MoveOn.org and other influential voices of the strongest progressives, someone's going to have to be free to speak their minds in a nation that has always prided itself in being the land of freedom of speech, freedom of will and spirit, freedom of gun-ownership, freedom of religion, freedom of this, freedom of that.....

I ask you, most realistically, what happens to the firm believers in "freedom of" when their leaders and the national media pundits who love (and are paid well) to talk themselves request that the believers just shut up?