Might I suggest the one from the McClatchy (then Knight-Ridder) reporters who actually got the reporting RIGHT before the launching of the Iraq War?

Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay.

Yesterday, as we learned Scottie McClellan stopped sweating and can speak actually speak lucidly when not peddling bullcrap, the major media sources were full of their lead talking heads defending how they got it wrong — and their nine and ten figure salaries.

Strobel and Landay, the reporters who got it right — are having none of it:

The news media have been, if anything, even more craven than the administration has been in defending its failure to investigate Bush’s case for war in Iraq before the war.

Here’s ABC News’ Charles Gibson: "I think the questions were asked. It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.” And “I’m not sure we would have asked anything differently."

Really?

Or this from NBC’s Brian Williams: “Sadly, we saw fellow Americans — in some cases floating past facedown (after Katrina). We knew what had just happened. We weren’t allowed that kind of proximity with the weapons inspectors [in Iraq]. I was in Kuwait for the buildup to the war, and, yes, we heard from the Pentagon, on my cell phone, the minute they heard us report something that they didn’t like. The tone of that time was quite extraordinary.” And this: "“It’s tough to go back, to put ourselves in the mind-set. It was post-9/11 America."

So the Pentagon tells the media what kind of reporting is in- and out-of-bounds?

Hogwash. Hogwash! HOGWASH.

There’s much more to this but it is more than my still waking eyes can digest at the moment, other than to say READ IT! I’m sure other more lucid FDL writers will pitch in with their thoughts later.

Editor & Publisher has weighed in too. And, of course, Glenn Greenwald has been exposing the same story for several years — with many updates.

We’ll see about Howie Kurtz (don’t hold your breath).

You know Charles Gibson and Brian Williams want to wish it away.

But those bloodstains are tough.

(picture from PBS)