Slicing and Dicing a Newspaper

The Obama camp denounced Hillary for Swift Boat tactics, and the Clinton camp said it had no such information and ripped Barack for playing into Republican hands.

Joe Klein unloads, saying: "This is outrageous. Journalists are continually bombarded with rumors, often scurrilous. They are not news. Rumors only become news when they are confirmed, cross-checked and responded to by the target of the attack. There are two possible reasons why Novak is peddling unconfirmed cra: (a) he is getting too old to do the actual legwork long-associated with his column (and respected even by those of us who find his views reprehensible) or (b) he has simply abandoned all pretense of being a journalist.

"But you must understand that this is a smear that tarnished both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama."

Turning to Newsweek's newest contributors, Captain Ed says the fact that Karl Rove was approached before Markos Moulitsas "puts a slightly different light on the announcement from Kos. While having a celebrated blogger win a featured column at a national news magazine represents a win for the blogosphere, it appears that Kos didn't get hired for his blogging but his political organizing experience . He was hired to balance Rove and not the other way around.

"In that context, Markos' hire is puzzling. Rove has led and won at least two Texas election efforts and three national efforts for the Republicans, before losing his fourth in 2006. Markos exists in a completely different league in political organization. It's as though ESPN hired a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback and a Division III college QB to analyze the upcoming playoffs. The latter may have some trenchant analysis to provide, but in terms of expertise, they don't compare. James Carville, Terry McAuliffe, or even Bob Shrum would have been more obvious choices."

Here's the first Rove column, and the one by Kos.

More on the angry Tim Page e-mail to Marion Barry from The Post's ombudsman, who notes that the Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic suffers from Asperger's disease.

Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program, "Reliable Sources."