~11:08am~ EST
110 DAYS TOO LATE: The whole report is a waste of time. POWERLINE, LilGreenFootballs, and dozens of others demonstrated that there was organized wrong doing months ago.

The fact that Rather "was already planning on stepping down" was of course a protective move by CBS from the beginning. Everyone in the building new what was coming down, but because of blogs - so did most information junkies - and LONG before now.

The part of the reports that are deeply disturbing and again proving that CBS has not learned anything from this silly excercise comes 10 PARAGRAPHS deep into their own story on the report.

"the Panel cannot conclude that a political agenda at 60 Minutes Wednesday drove either the timing of the airing of the segment or its content."

But if - as they cite earlier in the piece - this was a case of "rushing" to get the story to air...why the rush? If there was "no political agenda" evident how is it in any way possible not to recognize the "rush".

Also if there was "no political agenda" how then can the report fault Mary Mapes for contacting Joe Lockhart a top Kerry advisor? How can Mapes' contact and liason relationship between Burkett and Lockhart be termed a conflict of interest - and yet deny any "political agenda"?

The joke is a report. The blogosphere determined the majority of the facts in this matter months ago. (This blog even contributed to a portion of that discussion with previously undiscovered information on Burkett.)

The blogs have moved on - and the fact that it took CBS 110 days to admit these things and only after an "independent panel" said so, demonstrates even more CBS' inability to grasp how much the business of information has changed.

I personally would recommend that the top brass at CBS invest $19.99 at their local bookstore and pick up "BLOG" by Hugh Hewitt.

They might just learn something...