Another CIA Leak Probe?

"In one of those delicious coincidences, Day One of the post-Judy era at the Times has delivered a noticeable shift in the paper's coverage of Judy's old pal Ahmad Chalabi.

"For months, the paper has insisted on identifying the discredited neocon darling by his latest official title -- 'deputy prime minister' -- without a nod to the key role he played in providing the bogus intel the White House used to sell the war.

"I've said before, this is like doing a story on Ken Lay and describing him as 'a prominent Houston businessman.' "

While Ms. Huffington likes one of the more recent news stories, she much prefers "an excoriating critique of Chalabi that was a model of two-fisted opinion journalism. In the piece, the Times refers to Chalabi in a wide variety of disdainful ways. Over the course of 387 outraged words, he is described as a 'multiply discredited schemer,' a 'political opportunist,' a 'destructive influence,' 'a double-dealer,' an 'unreliable source,' and a man with 'no inhibitions about embarrassing his former friends with impolitic remarks.' "

Should the media treat as big news Pat Robertson's declaration that Dover, Pa., shouldn't expect any help from God if disaster strikes (having had the temerity to vote out a pro-"intelligent design" school board)? Yes, says Jake Tapper :

"1) He is a legitimate political figure. He came in second in the Iowa Caucus in 1988 when he ran for President, White House guru Karl Rove calls him to discuss Supreme Court nominees, his call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made international news.

"2) According to Nielsen, Robertson's show on the Christian Broadcasting Network averages just under 900,000 viewers a day -- far more than a number of cable news dudes who get a lot of ink, big book deals and high-profile guests.

"I've had Christian conservative leaders tell me not to cover certain other colleagues; it all gets a bit weird because if MainStreamMedia don't cover evangelical leaders we can get accused of being elite and out-of-touch, and the same when we do cover them."

The Dems are jumping on Sam Alito's ethics, and John Aravosis at Americablog is pretty exercised:

"Alito, trying to quell conflict-of-interest issues raised by liberal opponents, said he had been 'unduly restrictive' in promising in 1990 to recuse himself in cases involving Vanguard Group Inc. and Smith Barney Inc. After the Senate confirmed him as an appellate judge and when he subsequently ruled on routine cases involving the two companies, he said, he acted properly because his connections to the firms did not constitute a conflict of interest under the applicable rules and laws.

"Unduly restrictive? What the hell does that mean? It means when he promised not to do something, under oath I believe, he didn't really mean it. That's what unduly restrictive means.

"Son, promise you'll never lie to me. I promise, dad. But son lies to dad anyway. But under the new Alito standard, it's not really a lie. Son was simply being "unduly restrictive" when he promised he wouldn't lie. What kind of crap is that?"