White House vs. CBS

CBS is in a heap of trouble after publishing a blog post that asserted that Elena Kagan, a leading contender for the Supreme Court nomination, is "openly gay." The post, written by former Bush administration aide Ben Domenech, drew a heated response from the White House. White House spokesman Ben LaBolt demanded the post be taken down, and an anonymous official told the Washington Post that Kagan "is not a lesbian."

Meanwhile, Anita Dunn, who is working with the Obama administration on the Supreme Court vacancy, slammed CBS:"The fact that they've chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010." She added that Domenech has a "history of plagiarism" and was "applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers."

CBS initially kept the post on its site, defending it as an opinion piece. Later, Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com, took the post down and apologized. "After looking at the facts we determined that it was nothing but pure and irresponsible speculation on the blogger's part."

As for Domenech, he came under fire for his first response. Initially he added this correction to his post: "I have to correct my text here to say that Kagan is apparently still closeted -- odd, because her female partner is rather well known in Harvard circles."

He then issued an apology: "I offer my sincere apologies to Ms. Kagan if she is offended at all by my repetition of a Harvard rumor in a speculative blog post."