You aren’t alone in wondering.  That was one of the first things I thought of, and it occurred to one of Josh Marshall’s readers, too.

If I were an exec at Fox or CNN I’d be demanding a statement from all of my commentators that nothing like this had been done by any of them.

Hi,

Interesting points. Who knows what scandalous activities our government will be involved in.

Later,
Ryan

Politicians are a slimy bunch, generally, and I don’t expect any better of them anymore. I’m fairly sure that it’s not a practice performed and perfected by Republicans alone.

But I do expect the journalists to uphold the Journalist’s Creed. And since so many of them apparently can’t be bothered, then they’ve made themselves redundant. Save for a precious few who still know what this means: I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.