Game, Set and Match

It’s game, set and match to the blogosphere as CBS has finally backed away from its alternate reality and admitted they can not authenticate the fake memos, and should not have used them.

CBS however still displays the arrogance which makes it so despised. Recall that it twice aggressively defended the memos, and a former executive even attacked bloggers who raased concerns stating “You couldn’t have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances [at ’60 Minutes’] and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing.”

Indeed you can’t. Score one for pajamas.

CBS say they were mislead but acted in good faith. It is hard to give them even this much credit for three reasons. The first is they were warned by some of their own experts, prior to broadcast, that the documents could not be authenticated. The second is that as concerns were aired publicly they refused to back down and portrayed themselves as the vicitims of “powerful and well-financed” supporters of President Bush.

How paranoid do you have to be to regard the blogosphere as part of the vast right wing conspiracy? Also very liberal media outlets such as New York Times and Washington Post concurred with the blogs, as to the credibility problems.

But the third and most damning aspect is that the sources of the documents was not a source of unimpeachable quality as CBS claimed, but what No Right Turn calls a partisan wingnut.

Bill Burkett was a Democratric activist in Texas who loathed George Bush, had a history of making false allegations against him. To treat that man as a reliable source is simply outraegous.

It will be interesting to see whom CBS appoint to do the so called independent investigation of their actions. Regardless it will be a very long time until they have much credibility again.