Using the Bloggers

In the past, liberals have decried the alleged Republican "spin machine," wherein talk radio and conservative magazines present a story that then finds its way into the MSM (especially in the days when there was a President with a colorful sex life upon which the press was initially reluctant to report, for both taste and ideological reasons).

At least the conservative stories, for the most part, rose well above the level of irresponsible rumor. Here's an example of something quite different. The press is using wacky speculation from liberal blogs -- presented without even an attempt at producing a shred of evidence -- as a spring board to print unfair and incendiary allegations about the Cheney/Whittington accident, and then to purvey Cheney's drinking history back when he was 21.

Can you imagine how differently the MSM would spin a story about baseless speculation by conservative bloggers about the Clinton administration, had the blogosphere existed back then?