The headline reads, “Biden replacement creates blowback.”

It's about how Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner appointed Joe Biden's longtime aide Ted Kaufman to Biden's old Senate seat. Kaufman will be up for re-election in 2010 and it's widely thought that Biden son, Beau, Delaware's attorney general, who is currently serving in Iraq, will run in 2010.

In other words, there's a feeling that other Delaware pols were bypassed in order to keep the seat warm for Beau Biden. (It was a “ham-handed” move, Politico announced.) Hence the “blowback.”

Juicy story, right? Well, except the fact that Politico can't find anybody to quote either on or off the record to back up the claim that the Kaufman pick created blowback within the Democratic Party.

Actually, strike that. Politico did quote a Republican who claimed the Kaufman pick sparked “bad blood” within the Democratic party.

And yes, a local, Delaware college prof was quoted saying, the Kaufman pick "is definitely going to be some blowback." [Emphasis added.] Note the verb tense, is going to. But has it? It's very possible that the Kaufman pick has. It's just that Politico can't find any proof, which is why, once again, the outlet is guilty of over-hyping its headlines.