Lost in the shuffle of more pressing matters yesterday was the news that former New York police chief Bernard Kerik pleaded guilty to several charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials, as part of a plea deal to avoid an upcoming trial.

As we've detailed, Newsmax has been Kerik's biggest champion over the past several months, working to rehabilitate his reputation by giving him a regular column and penning fawning profiles that whitewash his deeds in order to portray him as a “American hero” victimized by “overzealous federal prosecutors.”

However much it may have wanted to, even Newsmax couldn't put a positive spin on this latest Kerik news. A Nov. 4 article on initial reports of the plea deal told the story unusually straight, albeit failing to tell readers that Kerik is (well, was) a Newsmax columnist. Newsmax went with an Associated Press story on Kerik's court appearance.

Kerik, by the way, is the second Newsmax columnist to fall by the wayside in recent weeks. John L. Perry hasn't written a column since he infamously called for a military coup against President Obama, which Newsmax was forced to retract. It remains to be seen whether Pat Boone's column will continue after Newsmax retracted his call for a “tenting”-style fumigation, “figuratively, but in a very real way,” of the “varmints” in the White House.