Commenter Terrapin has suggested:
I really do want to have a civil discussion about the way in which the GOP Smear Against the Majority Leader was handled by the press (meaning: you). This is purely for informational purposes only and not to cast any aspersions. … We want to how you heard about this, what calls you made to check up on it, whose opinion you valued and why.
In fact, a lot of you–in terms far less civil than Terrapin’s–have suggested that I was somehow a tool of the right-wing smear machine wantonly spreading this story. You also objected to my use of “Air Pelosi” in the titles of my posts (irony anybody?). But the fact is, the first I wrote anything about this was in this post, the point of which was to show that the White House and the RNC were talking out of both sides of their mouths. My subsequent post on the subject merely pointed out (I thought) that Pelosi had gotten backing from a well-respected and non-partisan official of the House, who has served in that capacity under both Republican and Democratic leadership. (I stand by my wonderment over why it took Pelosi’s folks so long to get this statement into circulation.)
How did I hear about it? Here’s the part that is going to greatly disappoint the Vast Media Conspiracy Theorists out there. I had been pretty much ignoring the whole flap, which seemed like background noise and not worth pursuing amid all the other things I do around here. Then I had lunch at the sandwich shop around the corner with three girlfriends, who also happen to be journalists. At some point, as we were catching up on what’s happening with our kids and our husbands and our turbulent profession, they told me about Snow’s comments, and we all found it, uh, interesting to see how they contradicted the nearly simultaneous RNC press release, which I vaguely recalled coming through my overburdened emailbox that morning. I thought, hmmm, this might be of interest to Swampland readers, so I confirmed the Snow comments and posted.
And that, alas, is the way it works here on the Dark Side.
