As a follow-up to the Letterman/CNN thing, in which I asked the question: "What in the world is going on? Is the White House that touchy? Did they call CNN? If so, why did CNN later claim they didn't? If not, why did CNN claim that they did?" Atrios reports that

Letterman just said that according to his source the White House did indeed contact CNN to try and influence their coverage of his clip of Bush speech.

If true, this is really incredible. First, CNN will report whatever the White House sends over to them. And, more importantly, when busted CNN will lie and claim they didn't get the information from the White House. They'll cover for them.

You'd think some of CNN's rivals would hammer them for this. You'd think -- but our media is so utterly broken and sold out that everyone will just go on their merry way. Appalling.

Update. The Post has the story, but those poor, resource-deprived reporters at the Post couldn't bother to figure out whether the clip was legit or not. The caption under a stillframe of it is: "Whether he really was there or not for the president's speech, the young yawner has caused quite a flap between David Letterman and CNN." Umm, Dear WaPo: Isn't there a way you could find out whether the kid was really there or not and, you know, report! The article has Letterman sounding wishywashy. de Moraes writes for the Post:

Last night on his show, Letterman recapped the story and joked that he's hearing that maybe the White House did speak to CNN about "George W. Bush Invigorates America's Youth."

However, my sources tell me that Letterman actually sounded pretty annoyed and didn't equivocate about the White House trying to make him look like a dork.