Blog roundup on Rather late departure news

Andrew Sullivan: CBS' SPIN CONTROL: Why on earth is Rather staying on full-time at Sixty Minutes, the show whose reputation he besmirched by rashness and partisanship? Notice the ABC News story barely mentions the memo-gate fiasco. Rather's tenure as CBS anchor was bound to end some time soon. Big deal. A simple question: How can you rehire a man for Sixty Minutes when you haven't even published your own investigation into the journalistic meltdown that he presided over? Shouldn't you wait until you know what actually happened before you declare that someone will stay on full-time? And how long does such an investigation take, for Pete's sake? My bullshit detector just went through the roof on this one.
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Captain's Quarters: "Rather had long since squandered any semblance of credibility even before he 'personally vouched' for the authenticity of forged documents that CBS used to smear President Bush. He leaves an incredibly damaged news organization in his wake, which won't recover until after his departure and that of Andrew Heyward, CBS News President." CQ also muses that some people at CBS are "delighting in in the opportunity to point out a few of the emperor's flaws now that he's passing from the scene."

Revisiting Jim Treacher on Rather's claim to be Queen of the Space Unicorns (thought to be related to the all-seeing Sauronic Eye below.) [via Tim Blair]

SHORT FINAL, CLEARED TO LAND: Letter suggests a vote for Bush was a vote against CBS.

NRO's Kerry Spot: CBS a day late and a dollar short, and that the fact Rather is staying on at 60 Minutes means you can expect a fluff of an investigation into the doc controversy. "There's no way CBS will face the music and admit that the "60 Minutes II" story was a cheap-shot, amateur, sloppy, partisan, nasty, half-witted bit of hackery and that the guys in pajamas ran rings around them...

No, the arrogant suits at CBS are going to ignore the hard, accurate work of the blogs, the scolding from other media, the blatant culture of bias, cynicism, and disregard for the facts that has taken root in the news division. To face the music would be too hard...

Not good enough, Sauronic Eye! This is long overdue, and we still want answers on how that memo story made it to air! And why it took so long for you guys to admit that it was fake!

And do you want to apologize to President Bush? It was his reputation you were trashing based on fake evidence."

Rather Biased.com: CNN announced the hiring of Jonathan Klein, CEO of TheFeedRoom, an online video infrastructure provider to be its president of domestic operations....Klein appeared on various cable talk shows defending the indefensible by attacking bloggers and internet writers as "a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas."

And for laughs - from Junkyard Blog -the new blogger symbol for CBS -the Sauronic Evil Eye -seen here scanning the horizon for rebel blogging forces.