So we’ve now learned that the Schiavo memo wasn’t a fake, and did indeed originate from the legal counsel to a Republican staffer.

Whatever. To be honest, neither scenario would have surprised me. A fake memo passed off by the Democrats would be standing operating procedure in Washington. As would shameless exploitation of a family tragedy by the Republicans.

My question is, what will the screeching bomb-throwers at Powerline do about this? They’ve been pushing the “fake memo” meme for weeks. They repeatedly stated matter-of-factly that the memo was a “fake,” and implied over and over again that it was a Democrat dirty trick. If a media figure had made the same mistake, the Powerline mob would be calling for a resignation. It’d be nice if Powerline provided an apology and retraction.

Don’t hold your breath.

So far, they’ve completely ignored the fact that they were dead wrong on the memo, that they wrongly cast aspersions on the opposing party, and that they misled their readers. Instead, they simply continue to blame the media, and Democrats.

Sorta’ like I’ve been saying all along. The mainstream media certainly needs watchdogs. But the high-profile blogs most critical of the MSM are often guilty of the same shortcomings — ideological blinders, jumping to conclusions, piling on — that they criticize Dan Rather & Co. for.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 7th, 2005 at 10:19 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.