I find it rather amusing that Yerdaddy is intimating that the ideological "circle jerk" is being done by those who criticize CBS for the Bush / memo story, rather than recognizing that the story itself was driven by nothing but the ideology of certain members of the CBS news department.
CBS' only sources for that story? Ben Barnes, Kerry's vice-chair and one of the top Dem ocrat fundraisers, and Bill Burkett, who is far from a credible source and is well-known to have a major Bush vendetta.
Hell, the father of the producer of the story even came out after the fact and stated that his daughter pretty much went forward with the story for ideological reasons. Here's a hint: she wasn't voting for Bush.
There were really only two opinions you can have on the story:
1. CBS took the documents - pretty much at face value, because it took internet bloggers all of about 8 seconds to totally discredit them - and liked what they saw and hoped that it was true so much that they refused to look into the reality of them.
I personally doubt that they were THAT stupid, though, which leads me to believe that they likely had doubt to start with...but they went ahead with the story with the hope that no one else would care enough to look into too deeply.
Or,
2) CBS is, for sure, just full of a bunch of fucktards.
Either way, CBS was rightly held accountable for its actions, and this is the fallout.
In Rather's defense, I think the story was more of the fault of his producer than his, but what killed him was sticking by the validity of the story long after it had lost all credibility. It was a loyal thing to do, I suppose, but in the end it's cost him his anchor spot. I won't really shed any tears.
I will miss Brokaw, though.
<center><img border="0" src="http://se7enrfnet.homestead.com/files/bush.jpg" width="300" height="100">
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Nov. 3, 2004 - It's official. Four more years!
There are those who said this day would never come.
What are they to say now? </center>