"This isn't exactly news."

So says Hot Air about the claim by Jerry Zeifman that "he fired Hillary for unethical behavior and that she conspired to deny Richard Nixon counsel during the hearings." (Via Glenn Reynolds.)

Well, no, the new report in question is not exactly new news. Nor was it exactly news when I wrote about it in January. Or when Patterico wrote about it in February.

My post did get a comment, though. And the commenter was nice enough to allow that old or not, the news was "huge":

Wow. This is huge. Why can't the pinko media see how important this is? If just a fraction of the liberals knew about Hillary's UNBELIEVABLE role in the Watergate proceedings, she'd have to move to Mexico.

The problem with news from 1999 is that it's not news today, and therefore not worth reporting.

There's no credit to be given anyone for reporting old news. Sure, I regurgitated it in January, but only because a post by Ann Althouse jogged my memory. (She may have been alluding to Zeifman too, and I don't think I deserve any more credit than anyone else.)

If there is a rule, it seems to be that old news does not become new news until it is reported as such by someone in the MSM.

At that point, it becomes news.

Maybe even exactly news.