When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.

Well, isn’t that precious?

Can anyone play this game?

Let’s see…

When I considered telephoning a woman named Sarah Boxer in New York, I wondered who might answer. An Al Qaeda operative? A Saudi in a burkha posing as an American? Someone paid by the Iranian or Syrian defense agency to oppose the war? Or simply an American with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq, and determined to see it, and America, fail? Until she picked up the phone, she was just a ghost on the NYT internet website…

I’m just sayin’…

[Update on Wednesday morning]

N. Z. Bear has picked up the ball and run it all the way into the end zone.

[Another update at 10:30 AM, eastern]

My, oh my. A commenter has tracked down the perp, and found out that she’s a book author.

Sarah Boxer

The species Pompositasaurus Rex, anyway. Les Moonves may be admitting that Roger Simon was right.

Moonves, who will ultimately select Rather’s replacement, said he believes many young viewers are turned off by a single “voice of God” anchor in the Internet age.

He spoke publicly about his search for the first time since Rather announced in late November that he was stepping down from the “CBS Evening News.” Moonves stressed that he’s still considering all possibilities. It’s unclear whether a new format would be ready for when Rather leaves in early March, or whether an interim successor would be named.

“Those days are over when you have that guy sitting behind the desk who everyone believes to the `nth’ degree,” Moonves told reporters. “It’s sort of an antiquated way of news telling and maybe there’s a new way of doing it.”

And if he is, to stretch the analogy, they were wiped out by an asteroid called the Internet and the blogosphere, that they never saw coming.

They had “myopic zeal,” all right. Myopic zeal to see John Kerry elected.

If it was only myopic zeal for a story, there were plenty of other much better documented and valid stories about which to be myopically zealous, including Christmas in Cambodia, earning a medal for cutting and running, less-than-honorable discharges…the list goes on. They could have had a scoop on those, since no other MSM organization wanted to pursue them either.

But for some reason their “myopic zeal” was confined to only one candidate, just weeks before the election. To think that there was no political bias here would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

They had “myopic zeal,” all right. Myopic zeal to see John Kerry elected.

If it was only myopic zeal for a story, there were plenty of other much better documented and valid stories about which to be myopically zealous, including Christmas in Cambodia, earning a medal for cutting and running, less-than-honorable discharges…the list goes on. They could have had a scoop on those, since no other MSM organization wanted to pursue them either.

But for some reason their “myopic zeal” was confined to only one candidate, just weeks before the election. To think that there was no political bias here would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

They had “myopic zeal,” all right. Myopic zeal to see John Kerry elected.

If it was only myopic zeal for a story, there were plenty of other much better documented and valid stories about which to be myopically zealous, including Christmas in Cambodia, earning a medal for cutting and running, less-than-honorable discharges…the list goes on. They could have had a scoop on those, since no other MSM organization wanted to pursue them either.

But for some reason their “myopic zeal” was confined to only one candidate, just weeks before the election. To think that there was no political bias here would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic.

On what some think may be the eve of the release of the long-awaited report on Rathergate (though Jim Geraghty is skeptical), Professor Hailey is still trying (laughably) to show that the memos could be real. As one commenter asks, “How debunked does something have to be in order to have nothing debunkable left?”

That’s what Dick Morris says happened in the 2004 election:

The defeat of the networks in the war of CBS versus the bloggers is one of the most dramatic illustrations of this new political dynamic. All of Dan Rather

That’s what Dick Morris says happened in the 2004 election:

The defeat of the networks in the war of CBS versus the bloggers is one of the most dramatic illustrations of this new political dynamic. All of Dan Rather

That’s what Dick Morris says happened in the 2004 election:

The defeat of the networks in the war of CBS versus the bloggers is one of the most dramatic illustrations of this new political dynamic. All of Dan Rather

…that at least one major MSM publication, The Economist, seems to actually understand the blogosphere.

The erosion of the old media establishment probably does entail some shift to the right, if only because so many of the newer voices are more reliably pro-Republican than Mr Rather. But the new media are simply too anarchic and subversive for any single political faction to take control of them. There are plenty of leftish bloggers too: such people helped Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. And the most successful conservative bloggers are far from being party loyalists: look at the way in 2002 that they kept the heat on the Republicans’ then Senate leader, Trent Lott, for racist remarks that the New York Times originally buried. It is a safe bet that, if the current Bush administration goes the way of previous second-term administrations and becomes consumed by scandals, conservative bloggers will be in the forefront of the scandal-mongering.

Mr Rather’s passing does not mean that the liberal orthodoxy is about to give way to a new conservative one. It means that all orthodoxies are being chewed up by a voraciously unpredictable news media, which is surely all to the good.