Doing its best to prop up the beyond soggy and now practically underwater Blago/Obama “scandal,” The Note works feverishly to convince fellow journalists (news consumers are not the target audience here) that they didn't make fools of themselves hyping the non-story for weeks. That the released report showing Obama's team did nothing wrong simply vindicates the media's hyperventilating coverage.

The two key take-aways from The Note's perspective are that the press should feel good about its misleading work, and that the Obama team could have avoided the whole mess if it had simply come clean. And oh yeah, this manufactured story's not over! It's going to “linger.” (Sorta like Whitewater?)

In other words, The Note's Rick Klein knowingly concocts fiction and refuses to come clean about the Village's utterly shameful Blago coverage.

And we don't use the word “concocts” lightly. Read this passage [emphasis added]:

To the extent that there's news in the report, it exists in part because Obama and company worked so hard before to convince the public that this president-elect would never be involved in something as parochial and tawdry as playing a role in choosing the next junior senator from Illinois.

Anyone see the irony? Klein claims Obama's message to voters was that he'd never be involved in something like Blago's dirty scheme and that's why this story remains “news.” But guess what? Obama isn't involved in Blago's dirty scheme, yet the press claims this is news.

As we've noted before, when it wants to, the press can tell any story it wants.