Buffet's Level 3 investment was led by Crowe, the same "genius" who gave us the Worldcom bankruptcy (after he had pumped and dumped the stock, of course)...
Funny, I just read your post and changed to another browser window that contains the online edition of the
Wall Street Journal -- the page has a link to a story about James Crowe. How is Crowe affiliated with Worldcom?
From the first paragraph of the story(need a subscription to access): The chief executive officer of Level 3 Communications Inc. denied allegations by a former Salomon Smith Barney broker that he accepted shares of hot IPOs from the big securities firm in return for his firm's investment-banking business
With that, I would not discount Buffett's investment because it is with Crowe. I think exogenous forces (i.e. deflation, regulation etc.) brought down Worldcom. Those risks are the same for Level 3 - Berkshire seems to think the risk has been reduced.