Perspectives

I'm not blogging from my PC, so you'll have to pardon me if I don't link anything.

I've been checking out the reception of the CBS Report. The Right-leaning blogs tend to feel the panel didn't go far enough. The main complaints, as noted below, are the failure to call the documents frauds and the failure to call the participants politically motivated. Some of the blogs go so far as to call the report a whitewash. Most feel Andrew Heyward shouldn't get off scot free.

The Left-leaning blogs tend to downplay the whole story, some not even mentioning it. They seem more excited by Armstrong Williams. And there is a line from some that, as opposed to the Bush Administration, at least CBS fires incompetents. At least I didn't see (not that I looked hard) anyone claiming the story was "fake but accurate."

The mainstream media, correctly I'd say, is uniformly playing it as a devastating attack on CBS. The Los Angeles Times had particularly good coverage, going into great detail, and even giving plenty of space to those who feel the problem goes deeper.

Pajama Guy adds: I'm blogging without my contact lenses in, so pardon my typos.

Yes, the MSM is correctly playing it as devastating. So devastating, in my opinion, that I find it hard to accept that the two main culprits in the worst journalistic sin -- the dishonest 10-day defense of the story -- were the two guys who didn't lose their jobs.

One more thought: By revealing in minute detail how this piece went from a twinkle in Mapes' eye to a heavily promoted 60 Minutes broadcast, Boccardi and Thornburgh expose as myth "the multiple layers of checks and balances" that Jonathan Klein spoke about (see quote at the top of this page) when he disparaged the guys in their pajamas blogging in their living room.