[conservative in nyc]

The article obviously was slapped together in the middle of the night to answer the charges that have been circulating on WBAL Radio and this website about the Washington Post's original story. It's not even attributed to any one reporter.

It's pretty clear to me that the "operative" to which they are referring is the Democrat who purportedly wrote the e-mail to supporters about the upcoming surprise WaPo article - i.e. Ryan O'Doherty. The WaPo probably didn't name him since he denied any wrongdoing and claimed the e-mail was a fake. If he's innocent, his name's irrelevant. But I tend to give the MSM the benefit of the doubt here than most FReepers.

[Congressman Billybob]

It is not just here, and on WBAL, that this story has been poking a stick in the eye of Wa-Po. The story has also been on Newsbusters.org since 7:04 p.m. EST. That's a reputable source. And I know the story's there because I put it there.

LOL. John / Billybob

[advance_copy]

Much hinges on the claim that the e-mail is fake. If it is not, the "operative" wrote it. If "operative" wrote the e-mail, then he knew about the orginal WaPo story hours before it was posted.

Now, this gets us to the other (second level) WaPo assertion:

The Post's Maryland editor, R.B. Brenner, said: "It is not surprising that Democrats were communicating about the story the night before it appeared in print." He added, "The Post interviewed Mayor O'Malley, Governor Ehrlich and Joe Steffen, among others, before the story was published."

Assuming the e-mail is not fake, this is plausible if WaPo's "intermediary" to the "operative" was the original source for the MD4BUSH FReepmails AND "operative" is MD4BUSH. The intermediary could have told the operative that WaPo was running with the story but needed to verify the source. Operative could have given intermediary their FR password who passed it along to WaPo.

Once operative, i.e. MD4BUSH, realized that WaPo was running with the story, out goes the e-mail to "supporters". MD4BUSH, seeing the WaPo article and realizing they will be spotted as the source for private FReepmails, posts them publicly on unrelated threads.

NOTE also that WaPo doesn't assert the e-mail is fake. They only say that the operative claims it is fake. And I really doubt that because the e-mail comes from the Governor's chief counsel to the State Senate.