If you want to see one hell of a rat king, check out the comments to the apology article. I find it oddly compelling to watch Herald readers (no strangers to frothing at the mouth) turning on their own like this. But hey, trashing the Pats in this city is like wearing orange in Southie on St. Patrick's Day and some loyalties run deeper than local politics.

How about replacing Tomase with Mike Barnicle
over there at the Herald? I mean, if you're
a Boston paper that's gonna publish fiction as
truth, why not get the best local
fabricator in the business?

Dan Kennedy isn't one of those calling for Tomase's head:

... It's not like Tomase wrote false, anonymously sourced stories that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. But I would like to know more. I keep thinking about what happened to Peter Lucas, and wonder if the reason Tomase got it so wrong was because his source was so good.

If Herald editors have reason to believe that Tomase's source was not acting in good faith, will they out him? Today's apology would seem to preclude that. ...

Paul Flannery expresses similar sentiments:

... Before everyone goes all Salem Witch Hunt on Tomase (probably too late), let's remember that we don't actually know who his source was. Last time we checked, there was more than one person who worked in the Patriots video department. Fans were shocked at the beating the team took in the national press when the story broke. It's all conjecture! They don't know the facts! So it's beyond hypocritical to go after Tomase with the same venom here. ...

On Friday.