No point giving AP any hits; Lord Kos does an excellent takedown of John Solomon's story.

But let's remember the nugget Xan dug up on Solomon, when he did his first non-story smear on Harry Reid (boxing tickets):

Go read this piece from 2003 from the Center for Public Integrity and decide for yourself:

WASHINGTON, September 17, 2003 — A month before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and all of the increased government secrecy that has ensued, the Justice Department secretly seized the home telephone records of respected investigative reporter and deputy bureau chief of the Associated Press in Washington, John Solomon. And earlier this year, the FBI opened and confiscated his mail. Center for Public Integrity executive director Charles Lewis recently interviewed Solomon about it.

This is hair-raisingly horrifying. The question seems to be, did they find something in Solomon’s phone records or mail that they’re now holding over his head, or has the pressure just gotten to him? God knows we all have our limits, and not all torture is done with physical implements of destruction.

Phone records, eh?

Not, of course, that the ratfuckers in the West Wing would ever stoop to blackmail.

Certainly they'd never ratfuck a reporter.

Certainly they'd never ratfuck a reporter so they could smear a Democrat.

Certainly they'd never ratfuck a reporter so they could smear a Democrat before the mid-terms.

Certainly they'd never ratfuck a reporter so they could smear a Democrat before the mid-terms, when they're desperate to hold onto power.

Oh, wait...