YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE: Drudge reports that 60 Minutes hoped to sit on the explosives story until the very last minute.

News of missing explosives in Iraq — first reported in April 2003 — was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that “our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn’t hold…”

It doesn’t hold, all right. It doesn’t hold water.

So they lost their story. And there was time enough to debunk it. That’s what they get for playing partisan games.