The Baltimore Sun's Nick Madigan writes this week about how one of the bigger trends in politics in recent times (though I can't say that this is totally a recent issue) is for politicians or those seeking office to go after the reporters that are questioning them.

Awww, c'mon. It worked for Zell Miller, didn't it? Hell, it got him a contributor gig on FNC.

The Baltimore Sun's Nick Madigan writes about the countersuit filed against Sinclair Broadcasting by a former employee, Jonathan Leiberman, who took offense to the much-ballyhooed documentary about Senator John Kerry that the television station ownership company was running across its network before the 2004 Presidential Election. Leiberman was tossed after he refused to take part in the program - which many outsiders saw as a direct attack at Kerry and not a "news" story - and then told the Sun about what was happening inside Sinclair.

Over at Newsbusters, Brad Wilmouth writes about last night's Countdown on MSNBC, where Keith Olbermann had Janeane Garofalo on, and ended up in a discussion against conservatives and FOX News. Apparently, the two had fun trashing FOX's Fox & Friends show, which Olbermann called "punishment" to watch.

This morning, after the announcement that Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court had been pulled back, NBC's David Gregory was on the "Imus in the Morning" radio show doing his usual interview, but this time with a specific topic to cover. He specifically wondered if this announcement wasn't "timed" for release today, with the potential that other statements would be made about the ongoing CIA leak investigation concerning White House officials - therefore burying the former story.

Just minutes later, even before Gregory was off the air, "Imus" news guy Charles McCord read a statement that clearly spelled out that no other announcement would be made regarding the CIA leak investigation, which completely shut down Gregory's theory. Good move, Charles. You get my props for the day.

See, the instant news cycle does serve a good purpose, whether or not you agree with what the administration is doing or not. Now if we could only get instant answers to all of our questions...

One of the major comments heard by critics of the blogosphere in late 2004 was that without a presidential election coming up within about a year or so, that political blogs would lose their luster in a national sense. While it's probably clear to everyone that the every single American reader isn't drooling over politics 24 hours a day on blogs these days, that doesn't mean that the market for content, discussion, and information has disappeared.

This week, a new site was formed with the idea of getting the word out to people interested in progressive - or the left side - of politics. Visitors to LeftyBlogs.com can find a regularly indexed list (about every ten minutes) of posts from blogs "registered" as being progressive, even down to the state-by-state level. Obviously, meta-like websites such as this have had major success as they garner the attention of people who realize that the information glut on blogs is out of control - will it work for political blogs?

Last week, EdWonk compared statements made by Chris Heinz and Pat Buchanan about Israel, and says "it is unlikely that the left-leaning media will have much to say about Chris's utterances."