So now that the 2006 Pulitzers are out, the best part begins: the Monday (or Tuesday) morning quarterbacking. Who got what why? What's the greater significance in journalism that so-and-so won instead of what's-his-name?

A few of our own questions: Did the LAT get punished by the Pulitzer judges as a message to the Tribune Company that it can't cut the company to the bone and expect to be a national player? The LAT had a large number of finalists, but not a single award.

What was up with Mark Leibovich not even being a finalist in the features writing category? What's it going to take for this guy to get a Pulitzer? Going to the NYT? Oh, right.

NYT DC bureau chief Phil Taubman must be pretty burned that his local competitor picked up a finalist for its coverage of terrorism. Maybe Jay Rosen had it right when he said the Post is the new Times.

CJR Daily has its own take: Yesterday's Pulitzers were the ultimate showdown between the White House and the press. Both Dana Priest's story and the Risen/Lichtblau opus "have been denounced by President Bush himself as all but traitorous disclosures. Thus, we seem to have a sort of face-off at the OK Corral between the Pulitzer Board and the Bush White House itself -- one that, among other things, throws into stark clarity the sharply different values that guide each institution."

Of course that whole "line in the sand" logic train is based on the assumption that the White House reads the newspapers and discovers who won a Pulitzer...

> Anyone go to the Hay-Adams last night and care to dish?