Both The Washington Post and The New York Times thought it was big news on Thursday that leftist writer Glenn Greenwald is leaving the leftist British rag The Guardian and starting a new journalism venture with eBay moneybags Pierre Omidyar. Greenwald even claimed (sans laugh track) that the new site would not be driven by a particular political ideology, but added that “setting out to pursue adversarial, accountability journalism is a kind of ideology.”  

In this month's Commentary magazine, James Kirchick spotlights Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill as exemplars of "treason chic." The best part is a display of how Greenwald bristled with outrage over the disclosure of CIA agent Valerie Plame in the Bush years, and then was outraged in favor of  the outing of CIA contractor Raymond Davis in 2011:

With the traditional media admitting they find it hard to curb their enthusiasm for Barack Obama, John McCain demonstrated again today that he is reaching out to the new media, giving blogging critics from the right and left the opportunity to participate in the blogger conference calls he has been regularly conducting. The Washington Times noted the phenomenon in an article of May 16, McCain widens dialogue on blogs, reporting that three of the seven questions in the May 15 conference call were posed by liberal-leaning bloggers.

Of the half-dozen or so questions McCain took in today's blogger call [in which I participated], one was from a blogger from the left. James Kirchick, a New Republic assistant editor/blogger [and National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association 2007 Journalist of the Year], quizzed McCain on his position on the proposed amendment to the California constitution limiting marriage to one man and one woman [McCain expressed support for the amendment and for the ballot initiative giving citizens the right to vote on it].

The most barbed question actually came from the right. Quin Hillyer of the Washington Examiner began by expressing "all due respect," eliciting a wry "I always like that beginning" from the senator. Hillyer went on to describe what he characterized as "one of the most frequently aired complaints from conservatives," to wit, that "when you disagree with conservatives you seem to use the anger and the language of the left, and to question not just conservative positions but motive or integrity." Hillyer asked for assurances that McCain would "avoid that tendency" if he were elected President. McCain fundamentally disagreed with the premise, stating that he treated all people with respect.