One of the pundit shows - think it was Matthews, had Hilary's Senate opponent on. She was giddily happy because the Republicans are about to conquer the world.

Her logic? Bush has showed us the heavy price of incompetence....and we all know, the republicans own competence. That is their strong point. Bush was an anamoly. The rest of them are competent. So they will win because the American people now see the value of being competent.

I couldn't believe it. And did the host guffaw? Choke? Nada. Didn't point out how the "competent" republicans enabled the gross incompetency for 6 freaking years. Didn't toss their little anomoly out on his a$$. Unbelievable.

there are two possible explanations of this story and at least one is true.

the first is that Tom Edsall has a dry sense of humor.

the second is that several Tom Edsall impersonators have been cruising America's major cities since he left the Post, possibly as a Huffington promotion. Unfortunately, some of them deviate from the script from time to time. So we aren't really sure that the Edsall in the Gravel story is the Real Edsall. In Tulsa last Thursday someone who purported to be Edsall bought 50 pounds of kiwifruit. Oklahoma media analysts are still trying to decode that one.

My sentiments exactly! If Alter could not remember details of his conversation, then how could he recall the tenor of Edsall's vacuous response? Besides, why would he - intrepid 'journalist' that he is - insist on an off-the-record conversatation with a no-name reporter tagging along with a minor candidate? Is this standard operating protocol for eminent pundits? And what's with his paying the lunch tab? Like it 'bought' the silence of Reed? Perhaps, and this is telling, in Beltway journalistic mores? Finally, I'm struck by Alter's chutzpah about blogger 'parasites' when all that he (and Broder and Klein and the rest of their punditry class) does is to regurgitate the bleeding obvious. Perhaps the real fear among these Beltway pundits is that their cushy sinecures are under serious threat from more erudite and knowledgeable bloggers outside the Beltway, and who are not beholden to the chummy country club-scene within their private Versailles.

Jonathan, Reed said that Gravel asked if Edsall could "straighten Broder out". But you make it sound as if the conversation was between you and Edsall; you say the conversation "involved" Gravel, and you remember mentioning Broder, but have you called Gravel to see what he recalls?

You don't remember Edsall calling Broder "the voice of the people", but you do say that IF he said it, he would have said it in a particular way-- "pleasantly arch, neither serious nor sarcastic." For a non-remembered item, you sure do have a sharp memory of how he WOULD have said it. How would you know how he'd say it, if he didn't say it?

However, you say that both you and Edsall "know" that Broder is "an honest reporter", though you point out that you also know that Edsall and you, being "grizzled reporters" would never "matter of factly" (as opposed to archly?) call anyone the voice of the people. IOW, Reed reports something he said Edsall SAID, and you don't actually say Edsall DIDN'T say it (you even remember how he would have said it, etc.), and that makes Reed a "bad reporter". But you attributing to Edsall your own beliefs makes you a... grizzled reporter?

Without any evidence, you say both you and Edsall "know" that Broder is an "honest reporter". Well, of course, Reed wasn't saying anything about Broder as a reporter, just saying what Gravel and Edsall had said about Broder as "the voice of the people", and his interpretation of what their exchange was. (Frankly, his interpretation is at least as valid as your recalling the "tone" of a statement you say you don't recall.) So where does the Broder=reporter come from? Also how is Broder a reporter? He has a column and frequently appears on Meet the Press-- does he actually do any reporting these days? And if he does, how is that reporting particularly "honest"? You stated that Reed was a "bad reporter", so you're obviously making some serious judgments here about what good reporting is. So if Reed's bad and Broder's good, maybe we need to know how you're judging them.

On to lunch. You explicitly tell Reed that "it" was off the record, and he "explicitly agreed". What's "it" that is off the record? Do you have the right to decide that everything everyone there said is off the record? After all, Reed was profiling Gravel. Wouldn't Gravel have to say his own comments were off the record? And what the heck is it with you putting a lunch with a candidate off the record for another reporter, even if the candidate didn't do that himself? This is way too much like Tim Russert assuming that the default for any conversation with a public official is off the record, when (cough) those of us who read reporting would assume the exact opposite-- that reporters are supposed to REPORT, and that "honest" and "good" and "grizzled" reporters don't WANT things candidates say "off the record". Since you're kind of cryptic about what that means, we don't actually know what Reed thought he was agreeing to, if in fact he agreed to this. But you know, in my lay view, it's not "good reporting" to be doing a profile of a candidate and not report what the candidate said. I'm sure all you reporters have lots of rules about off the record and on the record and what that means, but really, you probably need to hash all this out openly, because to me, it sounds kind of like a dereliction of duty, you having lunch with a candidate who just made big news, him saying lots of interesting things, and you making sure ahead of time that you can't report any of it.

You also say that he misplaced in time your saying you had to go-- so when DID you say that? What was Gravel saying just before that? Do you remember? Or do you just remember that it wasn't at that moment? I can imagine that your understanding of why you left might be different from his-- that is, he kind of suggests (without actually saying so) that what Gravel said about the Bush twins drove you to decide to leave right then, and that's sort of interesting-- but the real point is-- did Gravel say what Reed said he said? (And what was his TONE? ) I'm sure Mike Gravel, of all people, would be glad to release you from any pledge of "off the record", or you could lift that yourself, since it was you, and not he, that put the lunch off the record.

Then you say that you paid for everyone's lunch, which was very nice of you, but do you generally pay for presidential candidates' meals? I guess the question is here-- did you at some point stop being a reporter during this event? You know, putting it off the record, refusing to report what was said, paying for lunch-- none of this sounds like a reporter.

You end with a sweeping generalization, that your batting average (combined with Edsall's and Broder's) are "a helluva lot higher than the Jebidiah Reeds of the world". Batting average is quantifiable. Broder has very often been wrong (remember recently he said that Bush was going to regain points in the polls? Etc?). (Of course, .300 is a very good batting average, so maybe if Broder et al are right 30% of the time, that's good enough?) So where is the evidence to support that statement? You don't actually do all that good a job of proving Reed didn't report this story well (in fact, you praise his account of getting to the restaurant). And you certainly don't prove that Broder has a good batting average. So....?

What you don't say ends up much more interesting than what you do say, and to me, that's an example of, umm, less-than-good reporting.