Bloggers: Important Sources When They Provide You With Leads to Anti-Bush Documents; "Internet Political Partisans" When They (Correctly) Prove Forged Documents

It is to laugh. It turns out that Mapes' big lead as to Burkett's newly-announced possession of documents proving Bush's malfeasance in the guard came from... bloggers.

Page 59:

On Monday, August 23, Mapes learned that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett was rumored to have important documents regarding the Presidents TexANG service. Paul Lukasiak, who operates a website on which he posts disparaging analyses of President Bush's TexANG serice, told Mapes that another blogger, Linda Starr, had seen new [NEW-- the correct word here, eh-- ed.] TexANG documents regarding President Bush. Starr hosts a website that recently contained the slogan, "Bush lied, Americans died," and is the editor of Online Journal, and online newsletter often critical of President Bush.

Mapes contacted Starr [did Mapes contact Powerline or LGF, I wonder? -- ed.] who responded that she believed that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett had a two-page, classified document regarding President Bush's TexANG service, and Starr speculated it might be a disciplinary report. [Speculated? But I thought she'd "seen" the documents-- ed.] ... Starr told Mapes that Lieutenant Colonel Burkett was trying to determine the best way to disseminate this information to journalists "without leaving any fingerprints."

As the lawyers say: Not really chock-a-block full of "indicia of reliability." Rumors from one left-wing crank blogger and a man with a grudge who wants to disseminate documents "without leaving any fingerprints" -- i.e. without willing to vouch for their accuracy.

Once again: left-wing bloggers good, right-wing bloggers partisan and suspect and to be dismissed without any sort of investigation whatsoever.

Update: The report refuses to find any political bias at work at CBS News -- stating that there's not enough evidence for such a charge -- but has little trouble deciding that the bloggers who exposed the forgeries had a "conservative agenda."