Talking Points, are Democrats taking a page from Rove?

Sorry folks, I ain't clever enough to come up with a good April Fools post, but they are out there. Here is a good summary post of a few.

Powerline has taken it upon themselves to try and scalp yet another Media Liberal NUTJOB, Mike Allen of WaPo. There has been some talk about a memo (on none other than Terri Schiavo) that either Reps or Dems circulated last week. Hinderaker makes a decent case about the memo but his crying is a bit misplaced. Remember this is the same guy who took down big Dan Rather. However, this case is a bit different. First, the election of a sitting president is not at stake.

Second, what gets pushed through a wire and what gets published as the final story is a major difference. I notice this all the time on the AP wire. There are constant corrections and constant redactions and sometimes there are mysterious notes at the bottom saying exactly what was corrected and what wasn't. Now unfortunately, uncorrected wired news gets printed sometimes. That is too bad for the paper publishing a story if it turns out to have a small error, as is the case here.

Should there have been an error the WaPo kept it out of their final printing of the story. Or even if they didn't it is just something that would be worthy of a correction. Like newspapers do all the time. However, calling for the head of anybody at the Post is a misguided attempt in this case.

Congratulations Hinderaker, you may have found an error in a Washington Post article. You are not the first. Nor will you be the last.

However, the best part of Hinderaker's tome is that he tries to make the case that Democrats may have generated the memo in order to turn it around and say the Republicans did it.

This would be a great idea. Using sleazball republican tactics to smear Republicans? This is worthy of a sceptic eye. Democrats? Using sleazy smear tactics? NAH! However, if this is the case the Republicans should thank their lucky stars that Democrats used only the most lighthearted Rovian tactic. It could have been worse, Democrats could have planted a bug in their own office and blamed the other guy.