The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen points out that the Washington Post is fairly obsessed with former Democratic Congressman Eric Massa -- but has all but ignored current Republican Senator John Ensign's troubles:

According to a Nexis search, the newspaper has run 26 stories that mention Eric Massa since March 1. Some of those articles were Style-section pieces that mentioned Massa in passing, but most are substantive news stories -- some on the front page -- about his alleged misconduct.

Now, let's contrast this coverage with the Post's reporting on Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, who is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation into his humiliating sex-ethics-corruption scandal.

While the paper has run 26 stories that mention Massa since March 1, it's run 12 stories that mention Ensign since Jan. 1 -- and only five deal with his scandal. The Post's editorial board has only mentioned Ensign once during that time, and that was to praise him for supporting public funding of private schools.

The Post is heavily invested in researching a scandal involving a former House member, but it's choosing to ignore a scandal involving sitting senator. Massa drew scrutiny from the House ethics committee; Ensign is being investigated by the FBI.

That's the kind of glaring double-standard you might expect the nation's most famous media critic, Howard Kurtz, to have pointed out by now. But Howard Kurtz works for the Washington Post, and tends to go easy on his employers.

Last December, Kurtz rather hilariously argued that media coverage of the Ensign story opened up news organizations to “charges ... that they're a little less enthusiastic about Democratic scandal.”

But now, as his own newspaper all but ignores Ensign while relentlessly covering a scandal involving a former Democratic member of Congress, Kurtz has gone silent.