[fight_truth_decay]

Joe Strupp offers his opinion: "Blair seems to reflect in person what he wrote in his book. He appears willing to take the criticism but taking full responsibility appears difficult. He is quick to blame his mental illness, drug and alcohol problems, and newsroom pressures, while also claiming that his abuses were not as dangerous as some others. "My stories didn't get any American soldiers killed," he said.

"When Blair came to Editor & Publisher for an interview, word circulated," said Strupp "that Mike Barnicle, another well-known fabricator, had been given a second chance in Boston, having signed up with the Boston Herald for a twice-weekly column. While Barnicle's past transgressions at The Boston Globe -- where he resigned nearly six years ago when faced with accusations of lifting story passages and making up facts -- seem to hardly stack up against Blair's well-documented misdeeds, the timing is interesting. Hopefully it is not a sign that second and third chances for veteran journalists who go wrong are more possible than in the past. Perhaps we'll see the return of Janet Cooke any day now. Certainly, Blair has shown that unethical newsroom crime can pay."

Blair will be a guest on O'Reilly tonight.

[NYCVirago]

Now this is funny:

I don't think I have a right to be a journalist. There may come a time when I can write a book that can be nonfiction, but at this point I am banned from doing any nonfiction right now. I think I have to pay a certain amount of penance.

Is he admitting that his own autobiography is fiction?

[bruin66]

And while he says he stands by every fact in the book

hmmm... I thought ALL facts are true. Have I missed something. He's learned to measure his words as Clinton did.