At the Washington Post, David Broder blames the CBS memo scandal and Dan Rather’s lying and obfuscation … on blogs, for somehow “lowering the bars:” The Media, Losing Their Way.

When the Internet opened the door to scores of “journalists” who had no allegiance at all to the skeptical and self-disciplined ethic of professional news gathering, the bars were already down in many old-line media organizations. That is how it happened that old pros such as Dan Rather and former New York Times editor Howell Raines got caught up in this fevered atmosphere and let their standards slip.

Time was when any outfit such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that came around peddling an ad with implausible charges would have run into a hard-nosed reporter whose first questions — before he or she ran with the story — would have been, “Who the hell are you guys? What’s your angle? What’s your proof?”

How long before guys like Broder begin calling for blogs to be regulated?