In addition to Williams' (sadly unsurprising) obliviousness to the central issue is another fairly remarkable admission: He wrote of the two generals: "As I'm sure is obvious to even a casual viewer, I quickly entered into a close friendship with both men. . . ."

Obvious? Professional TV interviewers are always chummy on-screen with "sources" of this kind; it's part of the act. But rarely does that mean they've become close personal friends.

Journalists at organizations purporting to be neutral should avoid interviewing close personal friends to begin with. But when they do these interviews, they should not assume the relationship is obvious; they should disclose it each time. Then the listener has some useful information to weigh about whether the journalist is likely to be asking difficult questions.

Again, this is is a relatively small issue next to the abuse the Times uncovered.

This piece is kind to the NYT's Risen. Maybe too kind.

Risen either didn't know that the statement by the Obama advisor was false, or did know and failed to challenge him on it. Either way, it's another case where stenography replaces reporting -- and especially troubling from this reporter, whose work has been crucial to our even knowing about the issue.

On Sept. 30, 2001, Gore went in front of a Democratic party audience and said, "George W. Bush is my commander in chief." The context -- the wake of the 9/11 attacks -- made this understandable, but I suspect more Americans got the notion of a supreme civilian commander from that speech than from any other single source.

...we may see some Republicans start to rediscover the value of civil liberties, as some did during the Clinton years...

Re your update citing Brad DeLong's post as evidence of Broder lying about supporting Nixon's impeachment:

I don't read it the same way at all. In fact, the stuff he quoted from Broder in 1974 sounds more like an implicit warning that bad consequences will come from not impeaching.

That said, I'm sorry Broder didn't retire some years ago; he's a great example of a columnist who's long since run out of things to say.