How does a mainstream media story "develop over time?" By having many other sources weigh in on it. If the Washington Post had been the first to point out the CBS memo problems, instead of coming in on the tail end, would you have believed them right off? Why or why not?

Almost all of the recent attacks on Bush on various fronts have relied on highly concentrated sources, sometimes a single person. Did you believe them? Why or why not?

There is no single blogger who is the "oracle" of truth. Truth is distilled from examining many sources, and ideally, from examining the original evidence itself. This is what is happening with the CBS flap, and it works on the internet because information can be so easily retrieved and passed around.

It's interesting that it's so hard to get the concept of a decentralized networking heuristic process across to people. It's also interesting that it's in some cases the same people who can't grasp the decentralized process of a free-market economic system. Probably no coincidence.

As an aside, the broadcast news networks claim to be objective, yet their behavior on many fronts, particularly recently, have made it glaringly obvious that they have chosen sides. They just aren't getting away with it any more.

With the "Yes On Prop XXX" committee, the "Kerry Sucks" blog, or the "Bush is a Chimp" site, at least there are no pretensions about where they stand.