I WAS ON NPR’S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED YESTERDAY, talking about Ra^therGate. You can hear it by following the link and scrolling to the bottom, or by going here. Pajamas are mentioned.

They asked me about the wisdom of Congressional hearings. I said I was against them, as media self-policing (as opposed to CBS self-policing) seems to be working. That part didn’t make the broadcast, but I think it’s worth noting.

STRATEGYPAGE takes a three-year look back at the war:

After three years of the war on terror, the lack of a conventional “front line” or large battles, has made it difficult to easily determine who is winning. But a little effort reveals battles won and lost, and who is occupying what territory. Three years ago, al Qaeda had most of Afghanistan available for training camps and other facilities. There was even a “forged documents office” that operated openly in Kabul. Al Qaeda, or related organizations, operated extensively in over fifty countries, especially places like Indonesia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Chechnya, Iraq and Western Europe. Over 70,000 people were actively involved in planning and carrying out attacks. And the number of attacks against American targets grew during the 1990s, starting with a bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in 1993. But al Qaeda was handled as a criminal matter until September 11, 2001. After that, it was war.

In three years, al Qaeda has been driven out of most of its sanctuaries. Initially, al Qaeda was very popular among Moslems, and the slaughter of thousands of infidels (non-Moslems) on September 11, 2001, caused spontaneous celebrations throughout the Moslem world. That celebratory mood has been slowly changing, as more and more Moslems see al Qaeda for what it really is. After the slaughter of children in southern Russia earlier this month, the Moslem media finally moved broadly against al Qaeda and its terror tactics. This is significant, for Islamic radical terrorists are nothing new in the Islamic world. There have been several outbreaks in the last few centuries. Such violence can be defeated, and always is. One of the key factors in defeating these outbreaks is the local media turning against the radicals. . . .

The terrorists have been forced to make their attacks in out-of-the-way places. With thousands of similar targets world wide, and hundreds of thousands of eager young men and women willing to join their cause, al Qaeda has been able to accomplish little.

A “forged documents office,” eh? And they want to destabilize U.S. elections. . . ? Hmm. Naw, couldn’t be.

There’s also this summary, somewhat more mixed, of what is going on in Iraq at the moment. There’s also more on Iraq in this post from yesterday. And David Warren has thoughts on the strategy in Fallujah:

The Americans have made one big mistake since entering Iraq. It was to make local peace deals in Fallujah, and elsewhere, which left the fox in charge of the hens.

The idea was not, however, as stupid as it now looks. It was a risk: that if you put a few old Saddamite officers, and tribal leaders with lapsed Saddamite connexions — the ones not currently wanted for war crimes — in charge of a town, they will know how to restore order. They will prevent it from becoming a staging area for terrorist hits elsewhere, because if that happened the Marines would be back. And psychologically, one is likely to earn the gratitude of your erstwhile enemy, if you recruit him when he is expecting to be shot.

The risk may have been worth taking, in hindsight, for what the U.S. learned from it. We now know the policy backfired badly. The territories put off-limits to U.S. and allied patrol became terror havens immediately, as the local Jihadis came out of hiding to celebrate an “American defeat” — even as the Marines, who had nearly exterminated them, were in the act of withdrawing, according to agreement.

Warren joins the list of those calling for a more vigorous approach:

Election or no election, the Americans must now undo their mistake. They must, regardless of casualties, retake every town in the Sunni Triangle, and clean each one out, properly. Or, go home beaten by the Jihad. There really isn’t a third option.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Max Boot says that spreading democracy has been shown to work, and that we need to move faster on that front, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The Belmont Club is looking at casualties in Iraq:

While these figures do not address all of its dimensions, I hope they provide some objective basis for bounding claims that are made. Based on the pattern of casualties, it is hard to reach the conclusion that Iraq is descending into anarchy or that the resistance is spreading uncontrollably. If that were true we would be seeing a different distribution of casualties. Combat in Iraq is complex politico-military phenomenon. Some aspects of the psychology and politics are covered in the CSIS Report. I hope to move onto other aspects tomorrow.

Read the whole thing.

ABC IS POINTING OUT RATHER’S SLIPPERINESS: “RATHER DOES NOT MENTION KNOX IS A DEMOCRAT.”

Mickey Kaus: “Judging from tonight’s televised non-retraction by CBS news chief Andrew (‘This is going to hold up’) Heyward, it looks as if CBS will continue to twist slowly, slowly in the wind.”

Mickey’s hope that this will somehow hurt Bush in the polls, however, seems ill-founded.

UPDATE: Dan Rather issues another challenge to his critics!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael Richards emails:

What if the Swift Boat Vets had manufactured documents that proved John Kerry did not deserve his Silver Star? And they leaked them to Brit Hume at Fox News who rushed them on the air as part of an expose which included an extended interview with John O’Neill. And what if the left wing bloggers proved the documents to be false? And finally, what if Brit stubbornly stuck to his original story about the Silver Star and said, “The documents don’t have to be real because they accurately reflect the truth.”

How long do you think Brit would have kept his job?

Not very.

CBS HAS A NEW BLOG OF ITS OWN. The title says it all. . . .

UPDATE: Heh.

DRUDGE IS REPORTING: “WASH POST: Documents allegedly written by deceased officer that raised questions about Bush’s service with Texas National Guard bore markings showing they had been faxed to CBS News from a Kinko’s copy shop in Abilene, Texas… Developing…”

Hmm. What — or who— is in the Abilene area?

UPDATE: Here’s the Washington Post story:

There is only one Kinko’s in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents.

That tends to support a lot of blogospheric speculation regarding Burkett.

More thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, several readers are skeptical of the Burkett connection, and suggest that it’s a bit too convenient. Stay tuned.

ERNEST MILLER has produced a savage Fisking of CBS’s latest statement.

UPDATE: It’s okay to plant evidence, if you really think the suspect is guilty, right? “If Dan Rather is CBS’s answer to Jayson Blair, Andrew Heyward is Howell Raines. Both must go.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Edward Hyde emails:

Dan Rather could have asked the secretary the make and model typewriter she used in her job.

All secretaries have this information locked forever in their memory.

It might have settled the question of forgery once and for all.

He may not have wanted to hear the answer.

WVLT, the CBS affiliate in Knoxville, isn’t showing 60 Minutes II. There’s some sort of movie on instead. (Thanks to Knoxville reader Steve Lewis for the tip.) I wonder if any other affiliates are doing the same?

UPDATE: Another reader emails: “Hey Glenn – just an update, the Charleston, SC CBS affilliate didn’t show 60 Minutes tonight either, although I managed to catch the fun on the Savannah, GA affiliate which we also get here.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More on affiliates’ reactions here.

MORE: I don’t know about other stations, but a reader who works at a different television station in Knoxville says that 60 Minutes II was scheduled to be pre-empted all along.

CAYMAN HURRICANE UPDATE: According to Cayman Net News, the CEO of Cable & Wireless is calling for U.S. military intervention to deal with widespread looting.

This surprises me. Cayman isn’t as orderly as it used to be (crime was virtually unknown when I first visited almost 20 years ago) but I didn’t expect much in the way of looting. I will note that the British-style near-complete gun prohibition makes dealing with looters much more difficult than it is in the United States.

David Radulski has more.

“FAKE BUT ACCURATE” — that seems to be the gist of this longer CBS statement, via Drudge.

UPDATE: Sullivan is giving them hell on Paula Zahn, and says bringing in the secretary is an admission of fraud. Howard Kurtz pretty much agrees: The underlying facts have been “totally overshadowed” by their handling of the story, and it’s a “huge black eye” for Rather and CBS.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Kurtz halfheartedly defends CBS against Andrew’s charges of political motivation, but says it’s hard to understand why they’d blow their credibility on a story with such obvious problems. He can’t understand why they didn’t spend another week on it. Andrew repeats that it was Bush-hatred that blinded them to the story’s weakness.

ALLAH LOOKS AT the Dan Rather / Michael Moore connection.

ANDREW SULLIVAN will be on Paula Zahn tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern. He’ll be talking about Ra^therGate with Howard Kurtz.

HURRICANEBLOGGING: Beyond Salvage is blogging from Mobile. So is Weatherbug. Susanna Cornett is blogging, as is Brendan Loy. And Mike Roetto is blogging from New Orleans.

UPDATE: Red Coyote is hurricaneblogging from Ft. Walton Beach, and observes: “Can we get rid of ‘hunker down,’ please? I know it fits the situation, but ohmigawd, with Charley, and Frances, and now Ivan, it’s been beat into the ground.”

It fits the situation with Dan Rather, too.

ANOTHER UPDATE: More New Orleans hurricaneblogging. Plus, praise for drunken trannie hookers. Because, after all, New Orleans in a hurricane is still New Orleans!

WAITING FOR RATHER: Jeff Quinton is liveblogging the non-news-conference.

UPDATE: This is a statement? Give me a break. [LATER: Reader Joe Woodbury writes: “The best part is the president of CBS news can’t spell! I guess that’s proof they didn’t use Microsoft Word!’] What’s next? This?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hey, is it just me, or does this look like Dan Rather? (Nope, it’s not just me).

More thoughts on the statement here. And reader Glen Hughes spots some weasel-wording: “Note the memos have officially gone from authentic to ‘accurate’.” And this is funny.

Finally, reader Jefferson Perkins suggests: “Perhaps they should be stripped of their status as a ‘news organization’ for purposes of McCain – Feingold?”

Heh.

DAN RATHER: Apparently, still wriggling on the hook. Forget it, Dan. You’re caught.

UPDATE: I wonder if we’ll see more of these?

KNOXVILLE LOW-POWER RADIO STATION KFAR has been shut down by the FCC for unlicensed broadcasting. Given the FCC’s dishonesty and foot-dragging in licensing low-power radio, it’s hard to justify this sort of thing. More on this here, here, and especially here.

ERIC HOFFER on Ra^therGate and the blogosphere.

Well, pretty much.

UPDATE: Reader Brian Buchanan emails:

Someone at CBS News should be taking notes for the inevitable business school case study … How CBS News followed the Arthur Anderson and Enron road to disaster.

Yeah, probably so.

WHO KNEW WHAT, WHEN? Naturally, I find out stuff about goings-on in Tennessee, involving a Kerry lawyer I’ve had dinner with, from an Australian blogger.

UPDATE: More here. Be sure to read the update at the bottom. People sometimes miss those.

DRUDGE is now reporting that CBS has postponed its announcement until 5. Jonah Goldberg has doubts about this PR strategy:

Tell an already blood-hungry media that you will come out with a statment and then keep them waiting for hours. This is exactly the sort of crisis management and public relations that looks great on the resume. Maybe they should pee in all the cans of Mountain Dew at the press conference before they let the journalists in. Thaat will really win friends.

I think they’ve already peed in the media’s Mountain Dew. But I don’t think this represents strategy. I think it represents the kind of infighting that will make a fascinating story at some point in the future. And the good news is that, if there’s infighting, it means that there might just be somebody at CBS who cares about credibility.

THE BOSTON GLOBE has retracted its erroneous Bouffard headline, which misrepresented his views on the authenticity of the CBS documents. This marks a success for Bill at INDCJournal.

(Via Ace).

I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH THIS MEANS, but reader George Dunham notes that Viacom stock seems to have taken a modest tumble today. Could there be a reason other than the troubles at its CBS holding? Note the sharp drop just before 3:00.

UPDATE: A reader says that Viacom has other things going on that might affect the stock price. I won’t bother to list them here, but of course that’s entirely possible. It’s also suggested that putting the announcement off until 5 is designed to let bad news hit after the market closes. Could be.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Related thoughts here, from Professor Bainbridge.

MORE: A reader emails:

This is my train of logic:

1. Once CBS admits that these were forgeries, then there is no journalistic ethic preventing them from naming the source of the documents — actually the source should be exposed.

2. As long as CBS is “investigating” the documents, then they haven’t admitted to the forgery and they can protect their source’s identity.

3. Therefore, the source is so politically explosive that it’s worth the permanent damage to their brand and their news credibility. Who or what could possibly be worth that?

Janet Tague, Stamford CT. Not a political operative. Actually a registered Democrat (although I voted for Bush last time and most certainly will again now).

There’s a lot of that going around all of a sudden. . . .

NEW THEORY: “You can almost hear Jon Lovitz doing his Tommy Flanagan bit: ‘Yeah, yeah. They’re not forgeries, they’re, uhhhhh . . . replicas! Yeah, replicas — that’s the ticket!'”

UPDATE: Reader Houston Foppiano emails:

Rather’s New York Observer interview, where he seems to be utterly frustrated by the fact that people are focusing on the authenticity of the documents, rather than their “content,” reminds me of possibly my all time favorite episode of the Simpsons – “Homer’s Enemy.” If you will remember, Frank Grimes becomes increasingly obsessed with the fact that no one seems to be bothered by Homer’s incompetence at the nuclear plant, and tries to set him up by tricking him into entering the “build a model nuclear plant contest” meant to be entered by children. When Homer enters – and wins – and no one seems to mind that he’s competing against children. Grimey loses it and goes nuts, ultimately grabbing exposed power cables and getting fried.

Rather is heading down this path whether he was responsible for the original deceit of the documents or not. He can’t understand why no one is getting upset about his “blockbuster” story that Bush might not have met all his ANG requirements, and it’s making him crazy. He has completely missed the point that most people already assume Bush got preferential treatment, and was not the most repsponsible person in his youth – AND THEY DON’T CARE. They’ve already put that into their voting calculus, and if it didn’t hurt Bush when he was relatively unknown in 2000, it certainly ain’t gonna after he’s been Commander in Chief for four years. Why someone would put their credibility and career on the line to make this politically insignificant point continues to baffle me.

Me, too.

RICH, BLOGGY GOODNESS: The second-anniversary Carnival of the Vanities is up. Don’t miss it.

JAY ROSEN OFFERS “A Stark Message for the Legacy Media.”

In related news, U.S. Air has filed for bankruptcy. (And yes, it is related.)

Meanwhile, Carroll Morse offers further lessons:

CBS has set itself up for special scorn in this matter. The blogosphere’s complaint is not just that they may be pursuing an anti-Bush agenda, the complaint is that they have abandoned basic reporting — the core function of their organization — in an attempt to manipulate the agenda. Reasonable and answerable questions, including provenance of the documents, the precise qualifications of their experts, and the criteria used to establish authenticity have gone unreported, have been sluggishly reported, or have been sloppily reported and debunked in just a few hours.

Ultimately, CBS fundamentally altered the nature of the editorial trade-off. Instead grudgingly adjusting the level of reported detail out of economic necessity, they willingly sacrificed the quality of their reporting in their attempt to manipulate the agenda.

Read the whole thing.

FROM THE OPINIONJOURNAL POLITICAL DIARY:

“If my forgeries looked as bad as the CBS documents, it would have been, ‘Catch Me In Two Days'” — ex-forger and con man Frank Abagnale, made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Catch Me If You Can.

Plus, I’ll bet that Dan Rather didn’t get to sleep with Jennifer Garner.

UPDATE: Mike Krempasky writes that this is where the Abagnale quote first appeared.

HERE’S SOME HELPFUL ADVICE FOR CBS: “A source lies to you, and you find it out, you burn him. Period.”

(Via Tom Maguire, who has lots of interesting stuff.)

UPDATE: Still no promised CBS statement. A reader emails:

CBS is buying time with this stonewall tactic. I think that THEY’RE TRYING TO FORGE THE FORGERIES. They know that the presentation of mechanically produced exact replicas will weld their case against Bush.

I’m very afraid that some company with linotype capability is working on this right now. If these “forged forgeries” show up who would be left to denounce them but a bunch of right-wing lunatics in pajamas?

Or am I overly suspicious?

I’d think so. But then, just a couple of weeks ago I would have thought it unthinkable that CBs would go ahead with obviously forged documents.

But, honestly, I don’t think anyone’s going to take any suddenly discovered new evidence from CBS very seriously. It’s clear that they went ahead with reckless disregard for obvious problems with the Killian letters, and as Beldar notes: “Nothing — not even Lt. George W. Bush using TANG aircraft to traffic in cocaine sales to minors — could justify what CBS News has done.”

Is CBS waiting for Ivan to change the subject? I don’t think that will work.