(continued)

Winner: Former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel, for his pithy remarks in a five-minute interview with a Columbia journalism student. Frankel said, "Judy Miller should never have been allowed to kind of freelance the way she was." Then he was asked if he would have run the story about John McCain, which implied that a woman lobbyist friend of the Senator's was also his mistress.

"No," said Frankel. "Not in that form. Enough said."

Sinner: Leon Wieseltier, for the latest in an endless series of outrageous Washington diaries in the New Republic. This one idiotically asserts that the bizarre rantings of Jeremiah Wright are "reminiscent of Barack Obama's legendary Philadelphia speech."

They aren't.

Winner: Michael Crowley, in the same issue of the New Republic, for a superb piece explaining how Hillary Clinton's never-say-die attitude in this campaign was molded by her experiences during Bill's impeachment: "The Clintons find themselves victimized and under siege. The presidency is being stolen from them. The press is out to get them. They deride elites and champion the masses. They live in a constant state of emergency. But they will endure any humiliation, ride out any crisis, fight on even when fighting seems hopeless."

Winner: Executive producer Jeff Fager and the producers and correspondents of 60 Minutes, for a superb season of hard-hitting pieces on everything from torture to the war in Iraq, which landed the 40-year-old show in the top 10 sixteen times this season. Latest prize: the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award for "Evidence of Injustice," reported by Steve Kroft and produced by Ira Rosen, with a print version written by reporter John Solomon appearing in the Washington Post on the same day. The joint investigation revealed that the "science" of bullet lead analysis, used to convict hundreds of defendants, was deeply flawed. It was the ninth major award for the show this year, including four Emmys, an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Silver Baton, a Peabody, and an RTNDA Edward R. Murrow award.

Sinner: Emily's List founder Ellen Malcolm for encouraging that never-say-die attitude on the Washington Post's op-ed page. "Why on earth should one candidate quit before the contest is finished?" Answer: because her race no longer serves any useful purpose.

Winners: Jo Becker and Christopher Drew, for the first genuinely sophisticated and even-handed account in the New York Times of Obama's early years in Illinois politics.

Winner: Jacob Leibenluft for an interesting takeout in Slate about the future of Clinton's campaign debt—and how Hillary will have to keep raising money once the primaries are over, as the campaigns of Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Rudy Giuliani are doing now. The article also mentions famous debtor John Glenn. The former senator still owed $3 million 20 years after his failed 1984 bid for the presidency.

Winner: Michelle Boornstein, for her meditation on the evolving attitudes of younger American Jews toward Israel. Their education about the homeland is also changing: "Experts in Jewish education describe replacing mushy classic ballads like 'Jerusalem of Gold' from the 1960s with tracks from Israeli rappers who sing about immigration and sexuality, or jettisoning lessons about pioneering kibbutzim and replacing them with ones about Israel's technology wunderkinds."

Winner: The Times of London, for reporting a vital new bicycle-friendly innovation: Cars may soon be equipped with airbags intended to save lives outside the vehicle—the airbags inflate beneath a car's hood and at the base of the windshield. Good news for cyclists, who are 20 times more likely to be killed than car occupants per kilometer traveled.

Winner: Adam Reilly in the Boston Phoenix, for 10 story ideas for campaign reporters on the "straight-talk express" who are still besotted with John McCain. Example: "Hints of misogyny—In 1998, at a Republican fundraiser, McCain reportedly told this awful joke: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." This past November, McCain chuckled when a South Carolina woman asked of Hillary Clinton: "How do we beat the bitch?" (After answering the question, he professed his respect for Clinton.) And according to The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't (PoliPoint), a new book by Cliff Schecter, McCain subjected his wife, Cindy, to a vulgar tirade, including a C-bomb, when she joked about his thinning hair in 1992. (Schecter cites three unnamed Arizona journalists; McCain has denied this account.) In addition, he recently opposed legislation that would guarantee women equal pay for equal work. What does McCain's biography tell us about his interactions with and views on women?

Seen Something? E-mail to alert me to anything you see that warrants high praise or high dudgeon.