A Gabfest for Naught? (washingtonpost.com): "Fox News did some yokel-on-the-street interviews in L.A. and couldn't find anyone who knew what the flap was about. D.C. residents were only marginally better informed.
The fact is, when it comes to an increasingly fractious Congress, most people, not to mention most journalists, assume that 90 percent of what goes on there is partisan posturing.
Which brings us to the current contretemps over the Senate intelligence committee memo. The offending words were written by a staffer for the ranking Democrat, Jay Rockefeller, suggesting that the minority be prepared to break with the GOP in highlighting 'the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.' Which prompted the Republicans to accuse the Democrats of playing politics with the war on terrorism. Which prompted the Democrats to fire back at the Republicans.
Most of the press dismissed the episode as more partisan wrangling. "last week's flap over a leaked memo by an aide to a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee was not merely much ado about nothing. It was also as pure an example as you'll find of viciousness and cynicism in the service of George W. Bush.

"The memo was leaked to Fox News Channel talk-show host Sean Hannity -- an interesting choice in itself, since it's hard to imagine that anyone would leak genuine news to that self-important blowhard. You leak to Hannity if you want spin, and spin is what he provided.