An insightful reader adds this to my post:

I think one point you understate about this “coverage” is that the Times — both in its news and edit pages — had made a theme-to-the-point-of-fetish around the notion that, under Bush, intelligence had become “politicized” and undermined by political influence and interference.
Given freeman’s background, the Times should have been a leader on this story — based on its own declared news/editorial priorities. Even to have covered the nomination as “straight news” cheats the Times’s own avowed concerns about the quality of intelligence.

So the “politicization of intelligence” is the new homelessness epidemic — it only exists under Republican presidents.