THERE ARE THREE MEDIA ANALYSTS who command wide readership and deserve their influence–Jay Rosen of NYU, who writes PressThink, Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and now the New York Times, and Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post.

Of the three, Kurtz commands the largest audience because he has managed the old media-new media divide admirably, writing for both audiences with humor and spark. But even the best stumble, and Kurtz did so on Tuesday in his Media Notes column, and in a very telling way. Wrote Kurtz about Howard Dean and Ken Mehlman: