Today's internal debate, played out in the pages of Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, centers around what role Obama is playing in Wisconsin's union debate. The newsroom is quite clear: Obama is playing virtually no role. But on the Op-ed page, Journal columnist Karl Rove tells a very different story: Obama's a central player in the story. (And he's losing!)

Here's the Journal news piece:

Obama Sits Out State Fights

Pretty clear, right? From the article [emphasis added]:

President Barack Obama, after initially lending his support to organized labor, has stepped back from the fights spreading in state capitals from Wisconsin to Tennessee, leaving union officials divided about his tactics.

But that's not the tale Rove tells in the Journal today. By Rove's partisan account, Obama's practically engineering the whole Wisconsin showdown. He's “joined labor's attacks” and (gasp!) “trying to bully the Wisconsin governor.”

How is Obama trying to bully the governor by sitting out the union fight? Rove never really explains that, despite writing an entire column about Obama's pivotal role in the dispute. And yes, it's the same dispute that the Journal today reports Obama is not actively engaged in.

In this WSJ vs. WSJ squabble, I'm going with the newsroom.