It's astonishing the lengths to which Beltway reporters will go in order to play dumb about the world of politics, and specifically the world of Republican partisan politics.

Note the recent WSJ article about Se. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and the ramifications of his recent health care vote: [emphasis added]

Mr. Nelson's support was crucial for helping Democrats secure 60 votes for the bill, preventing a Republican filibuster. Almost immediately, Mr. Nelson drew fire. Republicans have derided the bill as the “Nebraska Windfall.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) called it “sleazy.” Even the state's governor, Republican Dave Heineman, has been critical of the deal.

Wow, even the state's Republican governor criticized the Democratic senator over his health care vote.

Of course, in the world of politics and journalism, most reporters would not use “even” in that instance because it doesn't really make sense. The WSJ wants readers to think it's newsworthy that a Republican attacked a Democrat over health care?

But as I said, this makes no sense since the entire Republican strategy has been to uniformly oppose health care reform. Therefore it's not newsworthy that a Nebraska Republican attacked the state's Democratic senator. In fact it's the opposite of newsworthy; it's predictable and expected.

Apparently it is to everyone except for people who work inside the increasingly GOP-friendly WSJ newsroom, which stresses that even Nebraska's Republican governor has been critical of the Nebraska Democrat's vote.

I'm being redundant, but that language literally makes no sense. Why the “even,” when based on the relentless partisan warfare that the GOP has been waging this year, the attacks the WSJ describe are entirely predictable. The only way the Journal's reporting would have made sense would have been if Nebraska currently had a Democratic governor and “even” he/she had “been critical” of the health care deal. Then that would have been news. But the dog-bites-man partisan attack on display isn't news, so why does the Journal treat it as such?

And oh yeah, there's speculation that Nebraska's Republican governor may challenge Nelson for his senate seat in 2012, which, of course, makes the governor's partisan health care attack even less newsworthy than the Journal pretends it is.