I'm having a little trouble understanding how this is better than just writing this yourself using an anonymous source. It's not justified for you to comment based on (certainly admirable) standards in granting anonymity, but as long as someone else doesn't have those exact standards, it's fine to comment on what he wrote? Couldn't one use this process to get any story out using anonymous sources?

It's a fair point, but I didn't really do what your question suggests. I didn't decide not to write it, try to find someone who would, and then jump on it, thereby accomplishing through a third party what I wouldn't do myself.

Greg wrote about this a couple weeks ago. I didn't say anything about it at the time. Since then, it's been everywhere. It's part of the public record, of public discussions. I don't think I'm obligated to ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist, particularly think I know it happened. It's just now a fact in the public domain, so when it happened to fit into what I was writing, I cited it.

There are a lot of improper uses of anonymity that I nonetheless end up using and discussing (that anonymous White House official who attacked "the left of the left" - I would never have carried his message forth, but once it's in the public domain, I'm going to talk about it when appropriate.

I realize it's not a bright line -- that's why I say Little Brother asked a good question and you raise a fair point. But I do think there's a difference between my writing an article using anonymous sources and my citing someone else who did it.

I don't think it harms your analysis at all, but did you flinch even a little when excerpting the Greg Sargent quote under that huge "Sources Say..." headline?

Good question, but: Actually, no, I don't feel uncomfortable with it - but only because I was the one who found out what Rahm did at that meeting before anyone wrote about it. I didn't write about it, though, because the people who told me about it refused to let me identify them, and it didn't fit into when I think anonymity is justified, so I didn't write about it. The cowards at the meeting were too afraid of Rahm to go on the record about his stupid and disgusting (though revealing) outburst. I really wanted this story out, though, so I gave it to Greg to see what he could dig up, and he then wrote about it using those and other first-hand sources he found who also insisted on anonymity.

In other words, I know for a fact that what Greg wrote about that meeting was true and accurate which is why I felt OK about citing his anonymous report, even though I wouldn't have written -- and didn't write -- about it myself, even though it would have been a "scoop."

For whatever bizarre and seemingly incomprehensible reason, big Pharma has come out in FAVOR of health insurance reform.

It's not a mystery. As L Boogie said, the deal is that there won't be any negotiations for lower drug prices. If there's no public option, it means that costs of health care also stay high.

Combine that with the fact that it will be mandated that everyone have health insurance, and it's these industries' wet dream: the government's forcing 50 million new customers to buy their products (with government subsidies) while prices stay as high as possible (due to no public option and no bulk negotiations).

I'd be out there pounding the pavement in support of this if I were them, too.