Penny fucking late.

John

But ... but ... where are the anonymous sources?

Let me add that Kurtz's headline on this story, "If you can't beat'em, join'em?" is utter BS, especially with that Kudlow Question Mark.

I'm repeating myself, but I think TPM's failure was one of completeness rather than accuracy.

TPM continues to be impressed with the quality, or at least the level of access of its sources and continues to communicate that faith to the maximum extent it can without blowing them.

However, subsequent reporting by others made it clear that the "pushback" was due to the White House's concern that Reid didn't (and still may not) have the votes and preferred the certainty of getting a Senate bill with a trigger into conference, where they could fix it, to the risk that a couple of Senators could kill the whole thing. They feared that the choice in the Senate wasn't between 60 votes and 61, but, rather between 58 and 61.

To a senior staffer or Senator who'd broken his butt trying to round up the votes, this lack of faith would have been infuriating and that clearly affected POV of the person or persons giving the leaks as well as their assessment (or at least depiction) of the White House's motives.

The problem with the story thus evidently wasn't with the basic facts of TPM's reporting, but, rather, with the impression--which happens to fit quite neatly into the models in the heads of some here--that the the opposition was due to hostility to the public option per se rather than a disagreement over legislative tactics.

Josh later seemed to indicate that this was at least a possible basis for the White House opposition it reported, though the tone of the story was quite to the contrary and David still seems committed to the "White House Secretly Hates Public Option and/or is Smitten With Snowe" theory.

Speaking as a guy who's been on the "inside" of a few things that were getting reported in the press and, in every case, who found himself reading the reports and saying "WTF?" here's the thing you have to keep in mind when you read this stuff, here or anywhere.

In a big story like this with this many moving parts, even a source who isn't deliberately trying to spin the reporter (though they often are) and is just relating the truth as they understand it still just has a piece of the picture. The source is just just one of the proverbial blind guys describing an elephant. Unfortunately, in a fast moving story, if the reporter takes the time to find out what the other blind guys think about the elephant, he could end up going from having a hot scoop to getting scooped.

It's a dilemma as old as journalism. Except that that in the old days, depending on how close to deadline he was when he got the quote, the reporter often had the better part a day to figure stuff out whereas on the Internet you've got about sixteen seconds.

The tricky bit for a reporter is forcing themselves to set aside their own preconceived notions about the likely ropiness of the eliphant and accept that the guy insistantly and authoratatively screaming "it's a rope! It's a rope! An elephant is like a rope, dammit, a rope!" almost certainly just has hold of the tail of the story. The problem ist that, on one hand, folding that reality into the story usually compromises the impact in a business where you get paid for being noticed but, on the other, if you don't it's very likely you'll be eating at least a bite of crow when other people get around to talking to the guys who had hold of the trunk or were touching the side.