Here's what I think happened.

Maybe about a week or so ago, someone at the Media Research Center heard the news that Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava had dropped out of the NY-23 congressional race, and started thinking. “What if super-conservative, teabagger-approved candidate Doug Hoffman wins?” this staffer mused (in paraphrase) as he or she saw media figures claim that Republicans were committing political suicide by purging their ranks of moderates. Then that person came up with a great idea - catalogue instances of media figures saying NY-23 will be a disaster for the GOP, and if Hoffman wins, republish those quotes in order to embarrass those silly members of the liberal media.

Truth be told, it's not a bad idea. But here's the hitch - it would only work if Hoffman won. And, of course, Hoffman lost the traditionally Republican district to the Democrat, Bill Owens.

Well, the MRC apparently wasn't ready to give up on the idea and refused to let Hoffman's defeat get in their way. As such, they announced today “The 'Dewey Defeats Truman Awards' for the Most Incompetent Political Reporting of This Year's Election.” Highlighting quotes from Mike Allen, Katie Couric, the New York Times, and Ron Brownstein that criticized the GOP for expelling moderates like Scozzafava in favor of orthodox conservatives like Hoffman, the MRC offered the following explanation as to why these media types were wrong:

Last night's election results were an unequivocal testament to the strength of the conservative movement. In New York's 23rd, the GOP lost because it committed political suicide by drafting a candidate to the left even of the Democrat, and a complete political unknown came within a whisker of winning on the Conservative Party line. In New Jersey, a moderate Republican barely defeated a liberal incumbent Democrat with an approval rating under 40%. But in Virginia, a state captured by the Democrats last year, and where an unabashed, uncompromising, conservative GOP ticket ran this year, it won a massive landslide.

So here's the situation as it stands: Allen, Couric, Brownstein, and the Times counseled the GOP that ditching moderates in favor of hard-line conservatives won't work; the hard-line conservative who supplanted the moderate Republican in NY-23 lost the race; and even though that proved Allen, Couric, Brownstein, and the Times to be exactly right in their analyses, the MRC nonetheless lambasted them for “incompetent political reporting.”

A quick tip for my friends at the MRC - sometimes even the best ideas end up on the cutting room floor.