Libby: Leftly Leaning - Tuesday, January 23rd

Noting the pervasive criticism of the MSM among the blogosphere, Pachacutec offers a broad summary of mainstream journalism’s criticism of the criticism [1]. Be sure to read on for an exceptional discussion of blogger/journalist complimentarity and to answer the question, “How would you feel about someone showing up at your place of work to do more or less what you do, for free?”

On the other side, MaineWebReport questions David Ho’s recent article [2] portraying Libby bloggers as being in the throes of an identity crisis and painting a “questionable image” of the MBA’s organizational efforts. Describing Ho’s ilk as “the spoiled sibling forced to share attention” he notes the inevitability of bias permeating a writer’s work but that it is “unnatural … when these same writers try to pretend it isn’t occurring, while at the same time chastising this mystery beast of a lawsuit-addled blogosphere.”

As the jury pool (finally) reaches critical mass [3], TalkLeft ponders the wisdom of allowing someone with personal connections [4] to the case to sit on the jury.

TAP Online sets out to correct a central misconception floated around conservative circles (including the Wall Street Journal [5]) that Libby was not the “real” leaker reminding them that Libby did leak Valerie Plame’s identity [6] as a CIA officer and, although his efforts failed, “an incompetent leak is still a leak.”

Meanwhile, JustOneMinute disembowels the NYT's Neil Lewis’ tenacious factual deficiency [7]that Libby had nothing to do with the leak noting that people “following this case will find the actual testimony baffling if the Times is their source of basic information.” Also, don’t forget to weigh in on his poll [8] of which witness you would most like to see testify.

Finally, in the quiet of yesterday’s recess, while the news media scrambles to fact-check, James Joyner’s attention wanders [9]from trial minutia to the Dallas Cowboys. Back to business this morning, Joyner liveblogs Judge Walton’s instructions [10] about the process overall and regarding Valerie Plame [11] specifically.