See Politico's Dave Cantanese work himself into a knot defending Todd Akin

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. Politico pulled Catanese

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/david-catanese-todd-akin_n_1813728.html?1345501266

John Harris, editor-in-chief of Politico, said in a staff memo on Monday that Catanese "crossed a line a reporter shouldn't cross on Twitter when he seemed to weigh in on the merits of Todd Akin's comments -- especially in a way many people, including many POLITICO colleagues, understandably found offensive."

"Dave's tweets on Akin created a distraction to his own work, and to the newsroom as a whole," Harris continued. "They also made himself part of the story, requiring us for now to remove him from Akin coverage."

On Monday morning, Catanese returned to Twitter and address the controversy he sparked while commenting on Akin's controversy. "Bad idea trying to have nuanced conversation on highly charged issue on here," Catanese wrote. "Did not intend to take a side. Lesson learned."

But for Politico's editors, that mea culpa apparently wasn't enough to keep him on the Missouri Senate race beat, an area of the political world Catanese knows well. Before joining Politico, Catanese worked at a Springfield, Missouri television station and ran the influential state political blog, The KY3 Political Notebook.