Yes, that's a ton of lettuce

* One of the Washington Post's most loved and hated columnists is Leving. (I have a few friends who are now crying with joy.)

* Howard Kurtz's response to my question in his chat today:

Arlington, Va.: I disagree with your analysis on the Weekly Standard story about the supposed bin Laden-Hussein connection. I think the real reason this story hasn't got much attention is because Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld, who in the past have willingly sighted specious evidence to support various claims on Iraq, haven't said: "See? This proves our case."

That's an important mark of whether a story like this has any meat in it (and it's one that doesn't require journalists to do extensive analysis of the info in the memo and risk getting fooled again). If there was new information in this story that could be supported after a rigorous analysis, wouldn't the Bush administration seize upon it, especially considering they've promoted flimsier evidence in the past? Has any major Republican leader, or non-partisan leader of the intelligence community, supported the claims of this story?

Howard Kurtz: In fact, the Defense Department disputed the notion that there was new and conclusive evidence here. But it's certainly worthy of media debate. This was, after all, a previously undisclosed administration memo on a controversial subject to which the press has devoted acres of type during the whole Saddam/9-11/uranium/WMD/terrorism debate. As I mentioned in today's column, the NYT and WP did come around to doing more substantive analyses of the memo obtained by the Standard.