"What’s he call up and say? 'I got a hot one for you, Jon. Can you take what’s your email address?' Is that what he does?" - Chris Matthews on Cheney's media spokesman, Mike Allen of Politico.

As Chris says, this was "not reporting." It was fusing a journalistic enterprise with a political machine in order to gain page-views for a scoop and thereby money. And that's the danger of someone like Mike Allen getting so close to Dick Cheney that he is a stenographer-for-hire. Couldn't Cheney have just faxed his recent attack on the president to the press in general? Why does Mike Allen have to be his conduit? We know why. Allen has proved his worth to Cheney.

Video of Politico's Jonathan Martin trying and failing to defend the whoredom of his publication after the jump:

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