Earlier in  the week, the New York Times ran a front-page story regarding the supposed plans of Republicans to run attack ads highlighting Barack Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright, Jr. Accusations of racism (again) were raised. The paper milked the story-publishing a follow-up article the next day. On the third day, the paper did not rest and ran an item in its Political Memo section.

The only problem was that there were no facts behind the "story". The whole tale was trumped up by the paper.

Joe Scarborough offers fine commentary over at Politico:

Perhaps this news story might justify a three day roll out if, in fact, that narrative were accurate. Sadly, for the New York Times and Barack Obama's campaign, it is not.

Despite what the Times claims, the undisputed facts are these:

1. There was no "secret plan" by "strategists" or "financiers" to push the Wright story,

2. The super pac in question asked advertisers to bring them ad ideas focused on the federal debt,

3. The ad man who pitched the idea to the super pac conceded that the group did not want proposals that dealt with anything other than fiscal issues,

4. Mitt Romney and his campaign had nothing to do with anything involving this ad.

5. The Republican Party had nothing to do with anything involving this pitch.

Anyone who has spent any time working on a political campaign knows that terrible ideas bubble up and are popped by smart managers every five minutes or so.

Surely the highly credentialed New York Times journalists knows these facts of political life, no? Or does their zeal to attack anyone who may dare oppose Obama just lead them into violate journalistic princples? Banish the thought!

This whole display has been part of a pattern by the paper: do not vet Democrats and run spurious -and false-stories to damage Republicans or/and protect Barack Obama.

Perhaps the motto of the paper should not be "All the news fit to print" but "all the mud we can throw".

Or perhaps, "except for the facts, the New York Times is correct".

We are going to see a lot of this type of "story" in the months ahead.