In 1999, 60 Minutes "wangled an invitation" to visit Jeff Bezos at his humble Seattle office. Amazon was just five years old at the time but already had a stock market value of $30B. They sent correspondent Bob Simon to Amazon's headquarters which was located near a pawn shop and a "porno parlor." Simon likened the space to a "college dorm" and gave billionaire Bezos a hard time about his desk (a door with 4x4 legs) and his car (a modest Honda sedan).

Is it me or does Simon seem to be mocking Bezos?

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This week's special on the NSA from CBS's "60 Minutes" was a complete disaster. Conducted by a former US bureaucrat who'd overseen NSA activities and who is about to take a job working for NYPD intelligence (where he'd previously worked, in a scandal-haunted stint punctuated by liberal use of falsehoods), it was a total failure of journalistic integrity, filled with softball questions and straw-men, and lacking in commentary from a single NSA critic. This is a new low for 60 Minutes and CBS as a news entity. Mike Masnick has detailed analysis. Read the rest