In today's Washington Post online Q&A, Post reporter Ed O'Keefe offered a series of remarkable defenses of Fox News, like his suggestion that Fox wasn't really guilty of “promotion” of the “tea parties,” they were providing “balanced” reporting. But this may be the most remarkable:

There is no objective news on Fox: Just by deciding to air some stories and ignoring others, Fox is political thru and thru. I remember the day Scooter Libby was convicted. Every news channel was reporting the story; on Fox, nothing...

Ed O'Keefe: Right, but couldn't critics argue that CNN and MSNBC devoting so much time to the Libby conviction was an equally political decision?

This is the silliness of this type of debate... all of these channels serve the marketplace of ideas. It's up to you to pick your brand. [All ellipses in original]

Wow. Ed O'Keefe, a political reporter for the Washington Post, really thinks those two arguments are equivalent? That the claim that the conviction of the Vice President's chief of staff as part of an investigation that involved, among others, Karl Rove, should not have been covered is just as reasonable as the statement that the arrest should have been covered?

That's just astounding.