Howie Carr pillories The Globe over the memo story. Entertaining, but way over the top. At the same time, The Globe backs down but doesn't, having it both ways by standing by its story while questioning the credibility of its source.

The possibility that the memo is legitimate shouldn't be so quickly dismissed. Sure, this is a great development in the war between local newspapers. And then there's the battle between Modern Continental, Bechtel and the State over culpability. There's no shortage of competing interests here, and everyone is desperately leveraging the memo issue to their own ends.

But there's also the public interest, apparently lost in all the posturing and foaming at the mouth. Maybe the memo is real. Maybe not. It's an important question for how blame and liability will be assigned. Nothing happening in either newspaper now is contributing to getting the answer.