This, as Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler has explained over the years, is what happens when the Beltway press weds itself to a storyline. Once that narrative is agreed upon, there's no adjusting it. It is what it is, and everyone marches ahead in unison using the same 'facts.'

And recently, the agreed upon storyline is that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has become deeply entangled in a controversy about what she did and didn't know about torture techniques.

Here's how ABC reported it today:

Pelosi yesterday accused the CIA of giving her “inaccurate and incomplete information” on the use of waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics by the Bush administration, saying that CIA officials are guilty of “misleading the Congress of the United States.” Her recollection is contradicted by an intelligence report sent to Congress last week, which said Pelosi was briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques “that had been employed” in September 2002.

Yikes, Pelosi was caught red-handed telling a fib; unmasked by a CIA intelligence report which totally undercut her claim that she was never told about torture techniques. Busted!

But what did ABC dutifully leave out of its explanation about how Pelosi's recollection was “contradicted” by a CIA intel report? Just the fact that the head of the CIA warned Congress that that intel report may not be accurate or reliable.

Today's process gotcha thriller pits Pelosi vs. the CIA report. But in the press' preferred telling, news consumers don't need to know that the CIA report might not be accurate.

UPDATE: Like we said, the press moves in a pack. And this pack has no interest--none--in detailing doubts about the CIA report.