Katrina Redux

"What is amazing to me is the media circus that has followed this 'case' for almost two weeks now without really a shred of proof that anything had truly developed in the 10-year-old mystery. And we're not just talking about an informational mention on page six or seven of the local newspaper, or a 90-second story buried in the second half of a one-hour newscast.

"We're talking about hour upon hour of coverage, with some cable news networks devoting the entire hour of a 60-minute newscast to a developing story that could very well have turned out to be a lot of noise about nothing. We're talking about alleged journalists and editors whose judgment made them decide that John Mark Karr's plane ride from Thailand to the United States, where he sat, who he talked to, what he ate and even what procedure was used to allow him to use the bathroom was their very top story.

"All of this without the most basic elements of proof that freshman journalism students taking Reporting 100 are taught to look for.

"Unbelievable."

But the Chicago Tribune's Phil Rosenthal isn't buying:

"The knee-jerk reaction is to say the media ought to apologize for inundating viewers and readers with stories tying John Mark Karr to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey, a flood that presumably crested with Monday's announcement that he will not be prosecuted for the crime.

"Sorry, but it's knee-jerk reactions that got the media into this situation, so that might not be the best course of action. "After all, it wasn't the media that made Karr the prime suspect for 12 days in a 10-year-old murder case. You can thank authorities in Thailand and Colorado for that. The media reported doubts almost from the start."

The New Orleans D.A. walks out on a Brian Ross interview, calling his questions stupid.

Well, the Isikoff/Corn book on Iraq hasn't even hit the stores yet and it's being picked apart. (Which is only fair, since Newsweek and the Nation broke the news yesterday that Richard Armitage was the other secret source in the Valerie Plame outing.) National Review's Byron York wastes no time in weighing in:

"'Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,' the new book by the Nation's David Corn and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, is the most in-depth single account yet of the CIA-leak investigation. But representatives of two central figures in the case, former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby and top White House aide Karl Rove, say the authors never got in touch with them, much less interviewed them, for the book.

"'Neither Isikoff nor Corn ever contacted us to discuss anything about the book,' says Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Libby defense team. 'We were never contacted,' says Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove."

Corn, in an e-mail to York, says it's not true, that they did try to reach both men and made a formal request to the White House.