I have to say that Glenn's columns and commenters here are of a much higher caliber on subjects that I am interested in than almost anywhere else.

That said, can Salon's editors add a radio button on the top that says "view all comments except bebop-o's"? I get interested in a story, start reading through the comments, get into the discussion, then walk head on into Salon's most underemployed serial nonsense poster. Man, does he like to see his name on the screen.

Bebop-o, you are not adding anything to the discussion. There is a time and a place- this is not it.

Dear Mr. Stengl:

As a journalist, I am quite disturbed about TIME MAGAZINE's apparent unwillingness to engage on the issue of how Joe Klein got his incorrect facts published in one of the world's top news magazines.

I work for a very large news organization. We have some resources, but nothing to compare with TIME.

Nevertheless, we are obliged to respond to all questions which challenge any facts which make it onto the air.

We would consider it immoral, irresponsible, unjust and dishonest to do anything but.

For all the shame American media outlets have heaped upon themselves in their glowing stenography about the Bush administration, I would think it's about time for publications, such as your own, to recorgnize errors and do everything possible to correct them as a matter of faith with the audience and as a show of concern about your own credibility.

Vito Cupoli,

Toronto, Canada.

Why would there be a "republican" source? Surely the correct editorial policy comes from the management, and there is no need for anyone outside the organization to be involved. Anonymous and non-existent can be the same.

I just now tried to reach her. No one picked up the phone. Her voicemail then announced that her mailbox is full. Gee, I wonder why?

:-)

"They just smeared House Democrats as Terrorist-coddling national security losers to 4 million Americans based on patently false statements about the bill they passed, fed to them by Bush officials and/or GOP operatives."

I don't see the problem here. In the media's new role in disseminating government propaganda, this is just business as usual. They're just doing their job.

Thanks for your perseverence on this incredibly important issue Glenn. I'm guessing that most true "Americans" are 100% behind you on this one. This should be considered a battle in reclaiming the values of integrity and accountability from those who have long tried to deceive and manipulate the American public.

Thanks again and don't stop until WE get some real answers.

What the law should do, however, is make it mandatory to reveal anonymous sources when their information is proven to be misleading or false. Or, it could penalize reporters or publishers who publish anonymous information that turns out false. . . Maybe you do both.

We do not want the government involved in vetting news stories and deciding what is true or not. That solution is worse than the problem. What is needed is simply a news outfit that makes it clear that their policy is to reveal lying sources. Who would you trust more? The "New York Times" that employs the likes of Michael Gordon despite reporting falsehood after falsehood from lying sources that he still protects to this day and more than likely still uses- or a news outfit that protects anonyminity only on condition that the information being provided was done so under good faith and is true? Would Michael Gordon's sources "leak" their lies to such an outfit? Uh- no. Any news outfit that announced such a policy on anonymous sources would soon find themselves using very few of them- but the ones they did use- you could trust far more so than any other news outfit that didn't have such a policy to reveal lying sources.

Excellent idea, but shouldn't we first burn all copies of the Constitution?

Thanks for those links. Interesting reading at the NY Post (embedded in the Huffington Post link). So, if she's leaving anyway, and indications are she saw her position as a demotion of sorts, why her response to Jane Hamsher? It didn't make a lot of sense before, and it makes less now. What would it have cost Priscilla to simply be polite? Indicate that (for whatever reason) she needed to call Jane back regarding the matter, and then gather her wits if she was caught off guard?

Fluent in French, raised in Paris and a Mount Holyoke alumna. I'll bet she doesn't proclaim those factoids too loudly to her right-wing buddies.

Has anyone suggested that people like Klein (and Friedman and Dowd and Matthews et al.) be called "self-loathing liberals"?

http://www.siite.com/samples/time/about/biographies/senioreditorialstaff/painton.html

Interesting link, I especially liked the part about her high journalistic standards:

Priscilla has two qualities that are unmatched: her unrelenting passion for our mission as journalists and the intellectual rigor with which she approaches everything that we do. When I worked with her in Nation, there was no one who would inspire you so much to go out and find a great story--and no one who would bounce it back so quickly when it didn't meet her standards. She cares deeply about every aspect of the stories that we do--from the reporting to the headline to the picture captions. There's no way to quantify how much her passion and her standards have contributed to the unmatched quality of TIME over the last two decades, except to say that we wouldn't be who we are without Priscilla Painton.

High journalistic standards? bounce it back so quickly? unmatched quality? What was it Ms. Ripley said about critics alleging bias? "since before man walked on the moon"?

If Priscilla Painton is singlehandedly responsible for the high quality of Time Magazine's reporting in the Nation section for the last twenty years, we have a very good idea of both what Ms. Painton and what Time Magazine consider the term "intellectual rigor" to mean. Act II should start with Ein Klein Reue.