Usually the phrase “Monday morning quarterbacking” looks backward, as in fans or analysts replaying a football game and telling how differently they would have advised playing it. But when it comes to the news cycle, you could define Monday morning quarterbacking as trying to signal where the news agenda SHOULD go this week. The network morning shows (with Russert, Stephanopoulos, and on CBS, pundit Amy Walter) were heavy on this line for the week: White House indictments, or The Night Before Fitzmas? 2,000 dead in Iraq? And is the Miers nomination dead yet? They clucked in objective third-person tones that the news was all bad for Bush, without noting that they are the news manufacturers, not just the news deliverers. “The news is all bad for the president” — this use of the third-person by the media should be just as off-putting as the politician’s variety: “Bob Dole won’t stand for it.”

That’s not to say Miers isn’t a mess, or that the Plamegate probe WON’T come to indictments. But there is a heavy foot on the speculative bad-news accelerator today.