A reader noted here that he had beaten me to the punch in disclosing Paul Bender as a liberal bomb-thrower on his Zonitics blog. It does appear that he beat me to the gate--although he does kindly concede that I provided more "inside the beltway" information (written from the friendly confines of Ohio). What neither of us wrote, however, was that in September of last year, Paul Bender backpedaled on previous statements. On September 24, 2002, the Times reported:

In a recent interview, Mr. Bender, now a professor at Arizona State University law school, said that while he would not withdraw his criticisms, he would not repeat them, saying he did not wish to be seen as campaigning against the nomination.