As far as dropping the ball I was referring more to the fact that the major news networks didn't send anyone down there to investigate it first-hand - at least to my knowledge they didn't. (o:
You are definitely right though about the whole Rathergate thing leaving a bad taste in their mouths. Perhaps, as you point out that is the main reason they are so quick to put everyone down...
" Perhaps, as you point out that is the main reason they are so quick to put everyone down..."
The stage is set: if the story breaks out, WE'LL be the story, not Hinrichs, or the TATP backpack bomb he blew himself up with outside a stadium filled with 84K people, or the ammonium nitrate that Hinrichs attempted to purchase just a few days prior, or the large cache of explosives found in his apartment, which was "scrubbed" by the FBI, as reported by CNN.
(And, if you're wondering why I've repeated, several times, what still remains "founded and true," to paraphrase Boren's oddly worded press release of last week, I just want to have a nice, concise statement as to why this is not wild speculation, for all those "Goggle hits" that are, in some quarters, apparently a cause for concern at some future date, lol.)