The mainstream media caught up with the Charles Freeman saga today. It gets page 1 treatment in the New York Times and more detailed and extensive coverage in the Washington Post, with some solid reportage by Walter Pincus, a column supporting Freeman by David Broder, and an overwrought editorial attacking Freeman's defenders for advancing a "conspiracy theory." The ever-alert Glenn Greenwald dissects the latter's contradictions here.

This level of attention is probably not what Freeman's attackers wanted, because these stories demolish the claim that the fracas was about his views on Tibet and Tianenmen Square or even the fact that the think tank he headed had received a small portion of its funding from Saudis. It is now clear that Freeman's "sin" was the fact that he had publicly said some critical things about Israeli policy, though his views were in fact no more critical than comments frequently made by more moderate Israelis. Indeed, if Freeman …