More fallout from the Gilligan smear of Tony Blair:

BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan made a final plea for understanding in a late submission to Lord Hutton’s inquiry.

Reporters should be given “a margin for error” when dealing with matters of clear public interest, particularly on political issues, he argued.

How much of a "margin of error" have you given the people you've reported on? Enjoy retirement you idiot.

James Taranto sums it up best:

Everyone makes mistakes, of course, but when journalists start asserting a right to be inaccurate, they only harm the cause of a vigorous and independent press, which is crucial to democracy.

Amen. The public trusts (or used to) the press and the people writing in it. get it right the first time, there are no do-overs.