The mainstream media seems bent on providing us with regular examples of stupidity.  Or the Education system does.  Or the DNC and Howard Dean does.  Lately I have been running a lot of Deanisms (about 16 so far and climbing with a bullet), Zero Tolerance idiocy (sorry, I lost count of those) and now Smears.  The smears are the most interesting, for like Smear 1 (Rathergate), they can easily be avoided by good reporting.  But instead the MSM has decided that smearing is worth more than accuracy or truth.

The latest is the kerfuffle with the NSA and cataloging phone calls.  not the content, just the origin and destination.  Begun under Clinton, but USA today in order to get Hayden, recently nominated to head the CIA, they ran a story before verifying their information.  And now it seems that there is no there there.  As every named local phone company has denied either being asked, or supplying said information to the NSA (even tho the SCOTUS in 1979 ruled it a legal act of the government - that was Carter BTW).

So what happens after all the accused players bow out?  What does USA Today do?

"We're confident in our coverage of the phone database story," Anderson added, "but we won't summarily dismiss Bell South's and Verizon's denials without taking a closer look."

In English, that means we are sticking by our lies.  So they were told these 2 companies were supplying the NSA with the data.  Told, never verified.  So did they ask for verification?  Sources said they asked for it a day before the smear appeared, little time for a multi-billion dollar company to search its records. And this was supposedly (like Rathergate) after months of working on the story, they gave the principals a day to refute or affirm it?

After having the time, the companies reviewed their records, and said, Nope!  Not us!  Kind of like the MSM should do, but sadly seems to be bereft of the capability to do.

So now, in addition to to the Bush Administration, this member of the MSM has smeared 2 private concerns that now are facing a class action lawsuit.  Whose only merit is the money the amoral lawyers see in their eyes.  For it is truly without merit and legal.  SCOTUS is the final arbiter (I am sure they filed it in the 9th Circus Court of Squeals as they cant read SCOTUS opinions).

And again we have another case of shoddy journalism, drive by sniping, and no facts.  And unfortunately, we are supposed to read and believe this.  I don't think so, except for the mind numbed robots of the Bush haters and other assorted loons on the extreme left. (is that redundant?)

So the next time you read an MSM report about how bad Bush is, believe it at your own peril.  At least the intelligent ones on the left will start to doubt everything they read in that venue.  The others can read du.org and believe all of it, as it appears to be have about the same validity.