Where have all the certain kind of columnists gone from Sun-Times, where you go if you want to get with something?  Tom Roeser is keeping track.  He says Betsy Hart is gone, but she’s listed among the columnists on the site.  But again, click on her and find — nothing, a blank white space where her columns would be listed.  Hmm.

Mark Steyn is gone, but it was his idea, says new ed. page editor and former books editor Cheryl Reed if you ask her.  Such a major contributor on Sundays, mightily featured, national in scope, a veritable heavyweight.  He gone, as the Sox announcer says when another team strikes out, going with the black patois.

Mary Laney is gone, “apparently,” not having appeared since July 9 — with a much needed perspective, “Blame Islamofascists’ theology, not Western policies” — and also sporting lots of white space where previous columns should be.

Meanwhile, consider Carol Marin today in “Big Labor struts its stuff at debate,” in which she notes that presidential debates have become show places for sponsors’ clout.  Quite a good column.

. . . but NY Times would rather not discuss it.  Times Watch blogger notes how NYT blogger Kate Phillips profiled Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.  (So did Chi Trib.)  But the Times Watch man adds something that demonstrates a feverish response to the war that Markos later regretted:

Too bad Phillips didn’t file a more complete profile of Moulitsas – she didn’t mention his notorious April 2004 posting (which he later deleted) calling four private military contractors killed and mutilated in Fallujah, Iraq “mercenaries” for whom he felt no sympathy: “Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly. That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.”

 

Two ledes for house passage of lobby reform story, about which we report at this blog, you decide which tells more and gets to the heart of the matter pronto.

One:

The House scrambled yesterday to pass a watered-down bill that purported to end lobbying and earmark abuses, but in the end will not do nearly enough to change the culture of Capitol Hill back-scratching that helps fuel the growth of government and encourages corruption. One sign of the bill’s weakness was that it passed on an overwhelming vote of 411 to 8. As one wag put it, “Anything that passes by that margin is either in favor of the equivalent of motherhood or toothless.”

T’other:

WASHINGTON – Fighting Republican charges they have done little this year, Democrats in Congress began a rush Tuesday to pass major bills before the fast-approaching August recess, starting with House approval of a lobbying reform bill on a 411-8 vote.

If you’re guessing, yes, this second one is on page one of Chi Trib.  (The first is in the subscription-only — $4/mo. — Opinion Journal’s Political Diary.)

The publisher’s wife can’t let that story go, about the Republican who became a Dem because of GW.  Today she surrenders almost her whole column to the fellow.

He speaks of “this blog,” whose funding he intends to investigate.  Egad, is that me?

But not before he checks out his $2,000 contribution, which he thinks was from his two partners and him and so was only $667.67 but hasn’t had time yet. 

Did Hunter wait until he did check it before surrendering her space to him today?  It appears she did not.

Did she ask him what blog he’s talking about?  Apparently not.

What a team they make.  Of course, the issue is her professionalism and reliability, rather than touchy Republicans.

Later: Boy, am I the uninformed egotist.  Bloggers have been all over this lady.  See here, where Google has page one of 40–plus pages where she is mentioned.

For the past few days, since a news story of mine was published on Monday, I have been bombarded with dozens of daily e-mails from Republicans calling me a liar, demanding I be fired, and insisting on a retraction.

Says the publisher’s wife Jennifer about her incredible boo-boo including willingness to believe a trial lawyer in matters political.

Actually, the dozens of e-mails sound rather reasonable to me.  As Cicero said to Catline the conspirator, how long, how long will you abuse our patience, O Sun-Times publisher and wife.  How long?

She’s defensive to beat all, blaming her editor, who “took a small part of [her] story and made it into a headline.” 

She means the editor (correctly) rewrote her lede, she having buried it?  Here’s what the story had:

After watching the top five Democratic candidates for president speak before a trial lawyers’ group Sunday, attorney Jim Ronca of Philadelphia, a staunch Republican, became certain of one thing: He is not going to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election.

But that’s what editors do, she explains:

Reporters don’t write headlines, editors do. And they want to write something catchy so readers will read the darned story.

But that’s your story they’re trying to scare up readers for, lady. 

She also explains how readers should have read the story:

The story was not about the GOP lawyer; it was about the speeches five Democratic presidential candidates gave to a convention of trial lawyers.  . . . .  As reporters usually do, I asked two attendees after the session what they thought about the speeches.

See?  And one of those guys misled her.  Nasty fellow.  How was she to know?

Was she to look it up?  Not to mention the city desk or whatever it’s called now, where eye-shaded, hard-hearted editors have been known to take an adversary position to what comes across their screen.  For the publisher’s wife?  Are you kidding?

Following up on our biting commentary and lid-blowing reportage on the publisher’s wife Jennifer as O’Bama sycophant disguised as Sun-Times reporter — old news, said two readers, one-two — we have this from [Wall St.] Opinion Journal:

Her 7/16 story, “GOP lawyer sold on Dems,” tells of a “staunch Republican” who is “not only going to vote Democratic, [but is] going to financially support the Democrats” in 2008, having found Republicans “an embarrassment.”

But since 2000, staunch as he is, this guy has given $6,750 to Democrats, but only $750 to Republicans, OJ’s James Taranto reports, “and his most recent GOP donation was three elections ago.”

Now isn’t that something a publisher’s wife would have looked up, or did she never learn fact-checking at Chicago’s City News Bureau, where legendarily not even one’s mother was above suspicion? 

Jennifer got suckered, as did those who assume she knows what she’s talking about.  Do hubbies fire wives, even if they hire them?

Jennifer Hunter, the Sun-Times shill for B. O’Bama, the smiling Irishman running for prexy, is the publisher’s wife!  I just read it at The Beachwood Reporter, where she is billed as “Obama Puppet”:

Jennifer Hunter, the publisher’s wife who doubles as Barack Obama’s personal columnist at the Sun-Times, wonders today if Obama can end “centuries” of corruption in American politics.

Yes, is he that great a man?!

For a dozen other references to back up the assertion, which for that matter has been denied neither by her nor her publisher husband — and isn’t that nice, that he thinks of her? — but still calls for support by citation, look at what Barney Google says about it.