ERNEST MILLER notes an example of real-time fact-checking at the Washington Post. Message to Terry Neal: Welcome to what we in the blogosphere experience all the time!

HOW GULLIBLE IS CBS? Just look at this side by side comparison of an authentic Killian document and the one that Dan Rather fell for. Jeez.

“What kind of a fool do you take me for?” “First class.”

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES’ TIM RUTTEN:

Watching Dan Rather unravel over the past week has been something like watching a train wreck unfold: You know it’s all going to end badly, but you just can’t look away until you’ve seen how many cars ultimately go off the rails. Well, now we know, and there’s not much left to do but wave at the caboose as it careens over the side. . . .

Inevitably, bad things happen to good news organizations. The test of a serious journalistic enterprise is how it reacts to internal crisis.

The Los Angeles Times had its Staples Center scandal; the Washington Post Janet Cooke’s fabricated Pulitzer Prize-winner; the New York Times had Jayson Blair; and USA Today, Jack Kelley. In each instance, the organization immediately and exhaustively investigated what had gone wrong and put the findings in their entirety before their readers. CNN did precisely the same thing after its so-called Tailwind scandal, as did NBC in 1992, when its “Dateline” newsmagazine was caught broadcasting staged events.

Thus far, no such action has been undertaken by CBS executives, which is worse than inexplicable. . . .

CBS’ initial report on President Bush’s National Guard service was an embarrassment to Murrow’s legacy. But the implications of that mistake pale alongside the potential consequences of the network’s continuing refusal to do what the situation now demands: to forthrightly admit error, to undertake an independent inquiry and, then, to give a clear public accounting of how this happened. If the current custodians of CBS News willfully refuse to keep faith with their viewers, they will have disgraced Murrow’s memory.

Indeed.

STACY TABB is requesting help.

IN THE MAIL: Jeff Hawkins’ new book, On Intelligence, which looks very interesting.

JOURNALIST RYAN PITTS writes on CBS and Ra^therGate:

Other news outlets have jumped in admirably with investigations into the forgery story, but it’s time to see some harsher words for the failure of journalism that CBS has displayed in its wake. (Andy Rooney should have used a bigger curmudgeon stick, but maybe this Chicago Tribune piece is a start.) Would the media be eating one of its own? Too bad. CBS has screwed all of us over — both with the way it ran the story and with the way it’s handled the backlash. The network’s behavior has confirmed every single nasty thing that everybody believes about the media, and it’s not like we’ve got a nice fat reserve of goodwill to squander right now.

This is where CBS jumps on the grenade. Only fair, considering they pulled the pin and fumbled it in the first place.

Fair, but how likely?

“WHAT BLOGS HAVE WROUGHT:” Nice history of Ra^therGate to date. And what’s really nice is that it doesn’t mention InstaPundit. Nor should it. I’ve written about this, but other blogs did all the heavy lifting. As I wrote earlier, the blogosphere has matured into a full-fledged system in which no node is of vital importance, which is a very good thing.

UPDATE: Oops. InstaPundit actually is mentioned in passing toward the end — I just missed it because it wasn’t a link. The point still holds, though.

STUART BUCK WRITES that efforts by The New Republic and Kevin Drum to draw a parallel between CBS’s faked-document reportage and Fox News’ reporting of a doctored Kerry/Fonda photo are unfair and wrong, as Fox repeatedly noted that the photo was fake.

NAVY: Kerry’s medals properly approved. This report says that there was nothing wrong with the approval process where Kerry’s medals were concerned. That doesn’t explain his claim of a nonexistent “V” on his Silver Star, and it doesn’t get at the underlying facts, but it’s probably enough to put this issue to bed. But as I’ve said before, it’s a distraction anyway.

Beldar has much more on this.

UPDATE: Tom Maguire, as is his wont, notes something that I missed:

This latest AP story demonstrates that the Navy has military records for John Kerry that have not been disclosed. John Kerry promised to fully disclose his military records in an appearance with Tim Russert, and claims that he has fulfilled that pledge. However, he has refused to sign the Form 180 authorizing the Navy to release files protected by his privacy rights so that his claim can be independently verified. We now have compelling new evidence that his file has not been fully disclosed.

Read the whole thing.

BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND: Amusing Kerry commercial, if somewhat reminiscent of this George McGovern flipflop commercial from 1972 (5th down in the lefthand column). But with better music!

VARIOUS PEOPLE have asked me questions about the blogads on the site, and I thought I’d round up some of the more common ones:

Does it help you if I click through the ads? Yes and no. I don’t get paid by the click-through, but I suppose that if you do — and especially if you buy stuff from the people who are selling things — it makes them more likely to advertise again. So don’t kill yourself, but as Hugh Hewitt points out, you should always try to patronize the advertisers of sites you like.

Why do you run ads from so many lefty sites? I decided early on to take ads from pretty much anybody unless I thought they were offensive to me or to too many readers. I’m not easily offended by political views short of Nazis, Communists, etc. I don’t do porn sites — I’ve got nothing against porn, but it’s not my idiom, as they say — and I won’t do hate groups. Otherwise it’s pretty open. Most of my political ads have been from the left (though my biggest advertiser has been an art gallery) and I’m pretty sure that most of them were funded by George Soros one way or another. I figure the money’s doing more good in my pocket than his, and at any rate this insulates me from claims that my content is dictated by advertisers! And of course, some of the lefty groups — like Planned Parenthood or the pro-gay-marriage folks — are groups that I support.

Are you getting rich? Will you buy a Gulfstream? The answer to that question is summed up by the headline to this article: Bloggers find clicks don’t equal cash. Considering that I’m getting money for doing something I used to do for free, blogads are a great deal. But I won’t quit the day job.

What about donations? I still get those, and I have to say that a dollar of donation money makes me happier than a dollar of ad money. There’s something about someone paying you when they don’t have to that makes it nice. It offsets any number of hatemails. . . .

Do you recommend blogads? Yeah. It’s very easy, costs you nothing, and I’ve been pretty happy.

THE WASHINGTON POST has been doing some investigative journalism where Bill Burkett — thought by many to be the source of forged CBS Ra^therGate documents — is concerned:

The former Texas National Guard officer suspected of providing CBS News with possibly forged records on President Bush’s military service called on Democratic activists to wage “war” against Republican “dirty tricks” in a series of Internet postings in which he also used phrases similar to several employed in the disputed documents. . . .

In e-mail messages to a Yahoo discussion group for Texas Democrats, Burkett laid out a rationale for using what he termed “down and dirty” tactics against Bush. He said that he had passed his ideas to the Democratic National Committee but that the DNC seemed “afraid to do what I suggest.” . . .

The CBS documents include several phrases that crop up in Web logs signed by Burkett, including “run interference,” and references to a pilot’s “billet.” Former Air National Guard officers have pointed out that “billet” is an Army expression, not an Air Force one. Burkett has also used the expression “cover your six,” a military variant of the vulgar abbreviation “CYA,” which appears in one of the CBS documents.

In a somewhat less impressive feat of investigative journalism, the Los Angeles Times has discovered that a poster on Free Republic is a “conservative activist.” (“Stunning news!” — Patterico). They need to get out more. . . .

IRAQ UPDATE: Ed Morrissey posts a letter from a Marine Corps Major in Iraq. It’s a must-read.

Stephen Green also has a lengthy post that’s worth reading. And M. Simon observes: “Wars are never competently managed. Projects can be managed. People can be managed. . . . Wars cannot be managed because there is active and relatively unpredictable opposition. Even if you know what the opposition can do the actual mix of possible actions is always in doubt. So what can we do about wars? Win them or lose them.”

Victor Davis Hanson has further thoughts that are very much worth reading.

As Andrew Sullivan wrote a while ago (in response to this post of mine), “the notion that this was all going to be perfect and easy is as foolish as the notion that it is doomed.”

Constructive criticism is good. Doomsaying and MoveOn-style surrendermongering isn’t.

UPDATE: This long post from Varifrank is worth reading, too, as is this one on pre-war exit plans.

And Rand Simberg has thoughts on Iraq and the evolution of democracy.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Belmont Club has more in its ongoing analysis of the Iraqi military situation. Conclusion:

If the pattern of American casualties shows that most fighting is happening in Al-Anbar it is not because Administration officials are manufacturing the results to camouflage a “widening insurgency”. It is because there is no power vacuum among Kurds and Shi’ias as complete as that in the Sunni triangle. Civil war, if it eventuates, will not be result of military failure but from a lack of commitment to create a replacement Iraqi State. If we build it, it will come.

Read the whole thing.

A PICTURE A DAY OF WANDA: I think I’ve linked to this lovely photo-tribute from a man to his wife before, but it’s worth looking at again.

ERNEST MILLER HAS POSTED a lengthy and thorough chronology of Ra^therGate (or as some are calling it, “Danron”).

BRAVO FOR THE AP, which (at the behest of bloggers) has corrected a story quoting a Navy SEAL — who turned out not to be a Navy SEAL — criticizing Bush’s National Guard record. The whole chronology is here.

ANOTHER GENDER GAP:

By 49 percent to 42 percent, women are supporting Bush over Kerry (this was true in last week’s poll as well).

The bellicose-women trend identified here, here, and here almost three years ago would seem to be alive and well.

UPDATE: Reader Gina Vener offers an alternative explanation.

But, actually, I think they go together. Thanks, Dan!

A DC-AREA PR FIRM IS CLAIMING CREDIT for Ra^therGate. I don’t recall getting anything from them. Neither does Charles Johnson. This seems to have been a story largely generated by blogs, not email, anyway.

And if they were really smart enough to do something like this, would they be dumb enough to be bragging about it before it was over? I certainly wouldn’t hire a PR firm that did mind-bogglingly stupid things like that, and I can’t imagine why anyone with any sense would do so. Perhaps I’m wrong, but this looks like rank, and transparent, opportunism.

UPDATE: Power Line: “Victory has many fathers. You know the Rathergate battle has been won when PR firms step into the breach and try to take credit.” Timing issues with their claims are noted.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Ardolino: “Horsecrap.”

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The PR firm apologizes handsomely. They’ve raised themselves in my estimation. (A quick apology — good PR. Maybe CBS should hire them!) Click “read more” for the full text, as I don’t think the link above is permanent.

MORE: Kathy Kinsley has the right idea! “I’d also like to add, that if they want to communicate with me and ask me to push a story, they can stuff it or buy a blogad. Their choice.”