Still Seeking "Connection" Between the US Attorneys – Paulose "Controversy"?

Now, with its own editorial page essentially echoing points made by one of its own columnists, more and more of us are wondering how long it will be before whoever is calling shots in the Star Tribune newsroom decides there is sufficient “linkage” in the US Attorneys “controversy”, (to use the Strib’s quaint description), for the paper to dare make a dent in the basic “hows” and “whys” of the Tom Heffelfinger-for-Rachel Paulose swap out here in Minnesota. The paper’s Saturday piece, hooked to a DC emissary trying to do damage control in the wake of three of Pauloses’s top deputies simultaneously demoting themselves, seemed to go out of its way to avoid making any of the connections being pointed out by blogger -gnats and the New York Times alike.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it doesn’t look good when the Times jumps on “connections”,(more Strib-ese), to a major drama unfolding barely six blocks from the Strib’s front door. Compounding the embarrassment is when TPT’s “Almanac”, on a budget of about $1.99, brings in credible local legal talent for both a historical perspective on the coordinated self-demotion/mutiny of three deputies AND linkage to the bigger story out of DC.

If the Strib needs any more flogging it can look to the Boston Globe, where the always-solid Charlie Savage has his go at the role of Pat Robertson’s previously unheard of low-pedigree Regent University and Monica Goodling, (according to KSTP’s Bob McNaney a close friend of Paulose), now resigned after previously taking the Fifth to avoid disclosing her role in the, uh, “controversy”. There is also Dalia Lithwick via Slate/Washington Post, and Max Blumenthal.

At a moment in its history when friends and foes alike are looking for early indications of the new Avista Capita Partners-owned Star Tribune’s commitment to the kind of journalism that builds crediblity and influence, this episode is not encouraging.