Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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I predict the reaction to the Rather news will fall into four categories:

Mainstream Media Reaction One: “It’s time to salute a beloved newsman as he begins to ride off into the sunset. We will ignore the CBS memo story, the way the CBS announcement did, and if we do mention it, we will refer to it in passing as a ‘bizarre controversy,’ as if there was something strange or perhaps mentally imbalanced about news viewers expecting reports to be factually true. We will look at Rather’s career with rose-colored glasses, forever remembering him as the brave soul reporting in the hurricane, instead of the increasingly-nutty fellow who insisted after the memo story retraction that he wasn’t convinced that the memos were fake, only that he couldn’t confirm their authenticity.”

Mainstream Media Reaction Two: “It’s time to give some begrudging respect to the blogs. They should be happy now, now that Rather is away from the anchor desk. They shouldn’t be the least bit upset that Rather still will report for the show that he did the original report. Mary Mapes is still around, Andrew Heyward is still around, and there is no sign that the culture at CBS has changed one iota. The bloggers - who only happened to be right here, never mind all the other increasingly glaring and partisan mainstream media mistakes - should go away and be quiet now. Except for the blogs we like - Wonkette and Talking Points Memo and Daily Kos and Andrew Sullivan when he is criticizing Bush. Did you read Wonkette’s latest off-color joke? Hooboy. What wit! What hilarity! If only those nutty conservatives could be half as funny.”

Blogger Reaction One: “Whoo hoo! We won! Blogger triumphalism all around!”

Blogger Reaction Two: “This half-step by CBS is garbage, and they know it. Announcing this the Tuesday before Thanksgiving is comparable to announcing the news late on a Friday afternoon. The internal investigation - which we may never get to see at this rate - probably found that the entire CBS News structure is like the DNC press operations shop, only less accurate and with lower standards, and so this is the Sauronic Eye’s way of sweeping it under the rug. They’re every bit as bad as they were before the memo story ran, they learned nothing from this incident, and they ought to be thanking their lucky stars that an angry mob in pajamas carrying pitchforks and torches doesn’t march down to corporate headquarters like in some black and white monster movie.” (This happens to be my reaction.)

[Posted 11/23 01:16 PM]