Another MSM Attempt to Slam Bush Backfires

The USA Today story that said the phone companies were complicit in NSA investigations appears to be unraveling. Bellsouth and now Verizon have come forth and said they did not supply info to the NSA. Tony Snow said the administration would not discuss the story, which leads me to believe there's not much validity in it (Update: to clarify what I meant by validity, I meant that the USA Today piece may have shreds of truth but the story appears to be peppered with falsehoods) and it will go down as another media hachet job that will be dissected and proven misguided at best, intentionally wrong at worst.

Not only that, the program was reviewed by judges as far back as 2001 and no flags were raised.

The Left Coaster asks:

OK, is this a case of word parsing, or did the USAT blow a major story, or be led into blowing a story?

I would say that in the MSM's zealous attempt to slam the Bush administration for perceived rights violations, they will believe any source who backs the theory without much investigation. They know deep down that Bush is doing something illegal and the practice of throwing stories out there until they stick doesn't seem to be working quite like it used to.

Or maybe it is another Rovian plot to discredit the MSM and the donks.

As is the norm, AmericaBlog misses the point and Josh Marshall is spinning this like a top.

RWNH has some thoughts as well.