The Wall Street Journal's Tuesday feature on Idaho's 1st Congressional District race weighs in at a suitably Journal-esque 1,012 words.

The fact that there is a story at all suggests the 1st District race between incumbent Rep. Bill Sali and Democratic challenger Walt Minnick is up for grabs, and deserving national attention. But for anybody in these parts, familiar with Sali's political career, this story was the kind of rehash that, predictably, makes Sali critics chortle and, understandably, makes Sali supporters furious.

The article offers up a pretty full inventory of canned controversy. Sali's opposition to a Mexican consulate. His tongue-in-cheek "anti-gravity bill," meant to parody a minimum wage increase. The well-worn quote from former Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, who in 2006 referred to Sali as an "absolute idiot." In an interview with the Journal's Justin Scheck, Newcomb commits a brief moment of news, saying he doesn't back away from his assessment and predicting that Sali's style could cause him re-election trouble in reliably Republican Idaho.

And no revisiting of the Sali files would be complete without a retelling of the yarn involving Sali and Mike Simpson, former Statehouse colleagues now serving together in the U.S. House of Representatives. Writes Scheck: "A Republican Idaho House speaker said he threatened to defenestrate Mr. Sali during a procedural dispute over a bill."

Sorry, news hounds. No news here. "Defenestrate" is just one fancy word for throwing something — or someone — out a window.