Who polices the press cont.

The pajama wearing, Cheetos eating Blogosphere that's who! It is encouraging to see the non-traditional media take on Rosen, Foer and the rest of his anonymous cronies. The landscape is changing to where the MSM may actually have to consider that lazy, underwritten, shoddily researched and blatantly untrue stories are written at their own peril. If so, the quality of our discourse just got raised. Andrew calls it:

What might have been sent into the ether as a small provocation, summing up a coterie's assumptions, will no longer be given credence because of its provenance. It will have to make its case in a brutally frank environment. Or fail to.

Was Sotomayor an Obama team favorite for the nominee? Will the more factual and researched defense against Rosen and his hit squad be enough to keep her from getting pushed to the wayside if she was? I don't know. So far, Obama has proven himself to be non-confrontational when he can be. Perhaps Rosen and Co. were betting on Obama for this, knowing that the slightest push would send Sotomayor packing. Perhaps Obama was planning on favoring a Chicago native and a Harvard Alumni more readily than a Bronx judge. We will never know. If Sotomayor is not selected was it for legitimate reasons or the result of Rosen's anonymous hit job? Either way her career will have been irreversibly tarnished and for that, there should be some consequence. Glenn Greewald who was perhaps the most aggressive in response to Rosen asks a great question here.

There is a very legitimate question here as to whose reputation Rosen has harmed more -- Sotomayor's or his own.

The attention on the matter is now being turned towards Rosen's ethical fitness, journalistic ability and professionalism, all of which come from credited and quoted sources unlike those used by Rosen to smear Sotomayor. This list is growing, and that is a good thing. He will have to think twice before targeting someones character in this way again. The XX Factor at Slate catches Rosen doing this very same thing, in the same baseless way to Diane Wood in 1995:

But more troubling still, he seems to have been arguing that female jurists are by definition “mediocre” for more than a decade!

His ire has not been limited to women, he has done similar against minorities as well. Only White Males need apply in Rosen's view of the world. The NYTimes Editorial Board jumps in against the preemptive campaign:

The White House has no doubt been reviewing a long list of nominees. When President Obama makes his decision, he should ignore the uninformed and mean-spirited chattering and select the best person for the job.

But, John Cole at Ballon Juice is the winner this morning with this post script to Rosen filed on his blog under "assholes":

Thanks, dick.