4:11 PM: Update below.

Ok, now, everyone, listen to me carefully. Take a deep breath. Keep your hands in plain sight, and take two steps away from the Intertoobz.

The breach occurred after a software problem at the technology company NGP VAN, which gives campaigns access to the voter data. The problem inadvertently made proprietary voter data of Mrs. Clinton's campaign visible to others, according to party committee officials. The Sanders campaign said that it had fired a staff member who breached Mrs. Clinton's data. But according to three people with direct knowledge of the breach, there were four user accounts associated with the Sanders campaign that ran searches while the security of Mrs. Clinton's data was compromised.

Let us stipulate a few things. First, the DNC, under the barely perceptible leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, has greased the skids for Hillary Rodham Clinton. (A debate on the Saturday night before Christmas, when half the country's on an airplane going to visit the other half? Please.) Second, yes, it's true, if the situation were reversed, and it was the Clinton campaign that had breached the Sanders campaign's data, The New York Times would be screaming bloody murder and talking about a "culture" of slicker, and where's there's smoke etc. etc. Third, it's true that, if I wanted to throw the Democratic primary campaign into a little chaos to distract attention from the fact that Tuesday night's Republican debate more closely resembled a casting call by Roger DeBris, this is exactly the kind of story I would want to have out there. And, last, it's true that, if I wanted to distract from the fact that Sanders on Thursday was endorsed by the Communication Workers of America, and by Democracy For America, this also would be exactly the kind of story I would want out there. So, all your paranoid speculations are as well-founded as paranoid speculations can be.

This is still just a cock-up by a technology company that evidently should be selling lawn sprinklers instead of data access.

The Democratic committee blamed NGP VAN for the software glitch."This was an isolated incident, and we're conducting a full audit to ensure the integrity of the system and reporting the findings to the D.N.C.," said Stu Trevelyan, NGP VAN's chief executive. "The D.N.C. was notified on Wednesday by its data systems vendor NGP VAN that as a result of a software patch, all users on the system across Democratic campaigns were inadvertently able to access some data belonging to other campaigns for a brief window," said the committee's communications director, Luis Miranda. "The D.N.C. immediately directed NGP VAN," he said, "to conduct a thorough analysis to identify any users who accessed the data, what actions they took in the system, and to report on the findings to the party and any affected campaign."

There was some serious dumbassery involved on the part of the Sanders campaign, and the person most responsible has been sacked, so the story's over, right? The DNC could allow the Sanders campaign access to the data again. But what admittedly sends my thoughts up a grassy knoll is how this relatively minor blip made it to The Washington Post in the first place. After all, the bungling was with the vendor, and with the DNC for hiring the vendor, so wouldn't the smart play have been to keep this whole thing in-house? Also, if this story survives through the Saturday night debate, let alone becomes an issue therein, and if the Sanders campaign is shut out from the national party data for longer than this weekend, I'm going to be very, very suspicious. Devious and clumsy are, after all, the hallmarks of the DWS era.

UPDATE: What did I tell you people?

Under no circumstance let this scooplet survive one news cycle. Under no circumstance render it relevant to tomorrow night's debate—even though, as I grant you, only about 12 people will be watching. And, for the love of god, stay out of the freaking courts!

"We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction," Sanders' campaign manager Jeff Weaver said at a press conference Friday afternoon, on the eve of the third Democratic debate. "The leadership of the Democratic National Committee is now actively attempting to undermine our campaign. This is unacceptable," he said. "Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign—one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history."

Let me explain to you a little bit about my business, OK? On Tuesday night, the Republican Party's presidential candidates put on an ensemble performance piece so utterly grotesque that even some of the most devoted Both-Siderist pundits actually noticed for the first time that an entire political party had lost its mind. Now, those of us who've been saying this for nigh on five years—and longer, of course—are not afflicted with Both Siderism, so we've felt free to say this kind of thing for a while. But coming from the high-priced pundits, this was a moment of real advantage for the Democrats. But the high-priced pundits also get the whim-whams that far out on a limb and, because of that, they seek anything that seems familiar and safe. One of those things is that old standby…

DEMS IN DISARRAY!

Thank you all very much for pissing away this precious moment in time, the likes of which we will not see again.

You know what a real insurgency was? The McGovern primary campaign was a damn insurgency. Gary Hart, Rick Stearns, Gene Pokorny managed to outmaneuver a Democratic establishment that was a helluva lot more powerful than the DNC is today. (Back then, labor had some real muscle, and almost all the labor bosses lined up against McGovern, and George Meany fought a lot dirtier than Debbie Wasserman Schultz does.) And they never felt compelled to threaten a lawsuit.

They never listen. Truly, they don't.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io