RATHERGATE.COM says that CBS hasn’t done nearly enough by easing Dan Rather out of the anchor chair.

Meanwhile the mockery continues: “Dan Rather Scrambles to Confirm Story of His Resignation.” Heh.

Lots more here.

UPDATE: RatherBiased.com makes a good point:

While he would have preferred to retire after his 25th anniversary as anchor, the scuttlebutt inside CBS had Rather stepping down soon after the 2004 elections due to a combination of bad ratings, long-time affiliate discontent, and viewer dissatisfaction over CBS’s ‘Memogate’ story.

Frankly, it’s a shame that it has to end this way for Dan. In the end, he became the person he most despised, Richard Nixon. Had Rather and the CBS management been more serious about viewer input and fairness, they would never have had to stonewall about a story they shouldn’t have run.

Indeed. And, ironically enough, the overwhelming desire of both Rather and producer Mary Mapes to “get” Bush wound up helping him, and producing another bad week for the Kerry campaign.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt:

Rather’s announcement is more like Ron Artest announcing his retirement, if only Artest would. Both Dan and Ron have consistently lowered the standards of their various games, and have recently taken to attacking their customers because the customers booed.

Ouch.

MORE PRAISE FOR THE INCREDIBLES: “I haven’t felt more thrilled and exalted in a movie theatre since experiencing the very first Star Wars — and yes, that was a quarter of a century ago.”

HERE’S MORE ON UKRAINIAN EVENTS, with some useful, if not terribly encouraging, political background.

UPDATE: Continuously updated stuff on developments at The Periscope, including translations of radio broadcasts.

FOX NEWS AND ABC RADIO ARE REPORTING that Dan Rather will be stepping down in March.

UPDATE: But we’re still waiting for the RatherGate investigation.

And Jim Geraghty says that CBS is “more than a day late and a dollar short:”

And now I really want to see the results of that CBS internal investigation.

There’s no way CBS will face the music and admit that the “60 Minutes II” story was a cheap-shot, amateur, sloppy, partisan, nasty, half-witted bit of hackery and that the guys in pajamas ran rings around them. If it was, they wouldn’t be letting Rather stay on to keep doing “60 Minutes II” reports.

And they wouldn’t be delaying his “Evening News” departure until March.

No, the arrogant suits at CBS are going to ignore the hard, accurate work of the blogs, the scolding from other media, the blatant culture of bias, cynicism, and disregard for the facts that has taken root in the news division. To face the music would be too hard.

Indeed. But they’re not fooling anyone except themselves. If that.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan: “Why on earth is Rather staying on full-time at Sixty Minutes, the show whose reputation he besmirched by rashness and partisanship? . . . A simple question: How can you rehire a man for Sixty Minutes when you haven’t even published your own investigation into the journalistic meltdown that he presided over? Shouldn’t you wait until you know what actually happened before you declare that someone will stay on full-time? And how long does such an investigation take, for Pete’s sake? My bullshit detector just went through the roof on this one.” Indeed.

Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey notes that the CBS News Division seems to be dissing Rather in its coverage.

And then there’s this take, from Daniel Casey. Heh.

PAUL BOUTIN is now writing for The New Republic, where today he’s offering political and technological advice to U2.

RATHERGATE UPDATE: Dan Rather wins a Worst of 2004 Award: “He jumped the shark. Then he scared it away.”

LE MONDE ON INSTAPUNDIT: “Glenn Reynolds is part of the (imagined) world-wide popular wave trying to stand up to (and only to) the Bush administration, its ‘lies,’ and its ‘illegal’ war (as well as Yankee capitalism and imperialism).”

UPDATE: As should have been obvious to anyone who followed the link (or, judging by the parentheticals, anyone who didn’t) the above isn’t a quote from Le Monde, but a quote about Le Monde’s coverage.

IVORY COAST UPDATE: More information, and video, on the alleged massacre of civilians by French Troops, here.

UPDATE: Much more here — and scroll down for the photo.

I HAVEN’T PAID ENOUGH ATTENTION TO THE UKRAINE MESS:

KIEV (Reuters) – Up to 200,000 protesters rallied outside an emergency session of Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday demanding authorities admit they cheated in a presidential poll which showed the country’s Moscow-backed prime minister had won.

Parliamentary deputies held the session in response to calls from supporters of West-leaning challenger Viktor Yushchenko, who says he was robbed of victory in Sunday’s second-round run-off by backers of Prime minister Viktor Yanukovich.

I don’t know much about this, but it seems like a big deal.

UPDATE: Other bloggers have been on the job. Check out A Fistful of Euros, and Blog de Connard, a Kiev blog, which has photos and firsthand reporting. And there’s more at Neeka’s backlog, by Ukrainian journalist Veronica Khokhlova. Check out Europhobia, too. I’m not very familiar with these blogs, but they’re posting interesting stuff. Meanwhile Jim Geraghty predicts a domestic spin.

JIM GERAGHTY:

There’s one set of rules for regular folks, and another set of rules for celebrities, former high-ranking government officials, and other “important” people. If we break the rules, we pay the price. If a Dan Rather lies on the air, or Sandy Berger steals classified documents, there’s no consequence.

Anybody feel like contacting their CBS affiliate? And saying, “that’s it, we’re taking out our frustration on you guys, because we trusted you when you guys said, ‘the network is investigating, and we’re confident they will handle this properly'”? I mean, the suits at CBS are laughing at us.

And the pajamahadeen always laugh last.

Call me crazy, but I think there’s a connection between that sort of double standard, and things like this.

MUSIC, BOOKS, AND THE WEB: My TechCentralStation column is up.

PEJMAN YOUSEFZADEH is blogging at his backup site temporarily.

IT’S NOT JUST UNSCAM — The U.N. has other problems:

The United Nations is investigating about 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. civilian staff and soldiers in the Congo, some of them recorded on videotape, a senior U.N. official said on Monday.

The accusations include pedophilia, rape and prostitution, said Jane Holl Lute, an assistant secretary-general in the peacekeeping department.

Yeah, I know that pointing out the double standards is considered unsporting — but imagine how this would be playing if American troops were involved.

UPDATE: Patrick Spero has some observations on this story.

THE BLOGGERS’ FULL-EMPLOYMENT ACT OF 2004 JUST PASSED: Jonathan “Pajamas” Klein has just been named President of CNN.

New slogan: “CNN — now with the credibility of Sixty Minutes!”

SORRY FOR THE LIMITED BLOGGING: I drove to Birmingham, and back, today to pick up my grandmother (now 90) for Thanksgiving. I meant to post a note before I left, but forgot.

IN THE MAIL: An advance copy of John Scalzi’s new book, Old Man’s War. I haven’t read it yet, but the blurb from Cory Doctorow says that it’s like Starship Troopers without the lectures, or Forever War with better sex.

There seem to be a lot of blogger books out. Scott Ott’s Axis of Weasels continues to do well in the Amazon rankings. Bill Whittle has a new book out. And Jim Bennett’s new book, The Anglosphere Challenge, owes a lot to the blogosphere, which picked up his Anglosphere idea and ran with it.

ARTHUR CHRENKOFF’S ROUNDUP OF UNDER-REPORTED IRAQ NEWS is posted. Don’t miss it. Meanwhile StrategyPage notes that the Sunnis are trying to block the elections, and are likely to fail:

While the Sunni Arab thugs have the edge in experience, and reputation, their violence is not overwhelming. The army and police are fighting back, killing and arresting thousands of Sunni Arab gunmen. The Sunni Arabs don’t like to dwell on the fact that they are only a fifth of the population, or that they get slaughtered whenever they get into a fight with American troops. Trying to disrupt the January elections is now a major goal for the Sunni Arab extremists. They can do some of that in Sunni Arab areas. But in the next ten weeks, the number of Sunni gunmen available for this may be too low to make much of an impression. The Sunni Arabs are fighting a losing battle. Trying to bring back the good old days of Sunni domination will only work if the Shia Arab and Kurd majority is too weak to resist. No wonder the Sunni Arabs hate foreigners so much.

What’s funny is how many foreigners — like Michael Moore — have been rooting for them.

ONE SMALL STEP FOR SPACE TOURISM, over at GlennReynolds.com.

“CLIMATE OF HATE ROCKS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY:” Surely not.

I’M NOT MUCH OF A JOINER, so I haven’t joined a “team” for the Spirit of America blogger challenge. But they’re a worthy cause — I’ve donated to them myself — and I encourage you to consider donating.

VIRGINIA POSTREL loved The Incredibles: “Even while I was watching it, I was dying to see it again.” It got a thumbs-up from the Insta-Daughter, too.

SIMON WORLD’S ASIAN BLOG ROUNDUP has been posted.

KEVIN SITES RESPONDS TO HIS CRITICS, and has a long post on his blog about the circumstances of the Fallujah shooting incident.

UPDATE: Reader John MacDonald isn’t impressed: “Maybe if Sites went into the houses first, before the Marines, he might have a better idea of what was going on in this Marine’s mind.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: More perspective here: “U.S. forces say they have found nearly 20 houses in the Iraqi city of Fallujah where they believe foreign hostages were tortured and killed — including one with the wire cage where a British hostage begged for his life before being beheaded.”

Guess which story will get more attention.

MORE: Greyhawk at The Mudville Gazette says that Sites deserves respect, and hasn’t done anything wrong.

And some perspective here: “Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent who while faking dead opened fire on the marines who were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets.”