Mr. Bernard,

The tempo of the news cycle dictates the timing of “bad news” releases. When you want dump your own bad news, you do it Friday after the Sunday morning line-ups are set. The subjects on the Sunday morning shows become the focus of much of the following weeks media attention. I don’t think your “Kerry outed this” proposition stands up logically. Had it been true how does one explain the “I don’t have a clue.” gaffe. That one is a classic and a keeper – if Kerry’s camp were doing the outing I believe that they would have prepared him a bit better.

I do agree with your conclusion concerning the Bush camp holding this ’til later.

The timing of the link is fairly crucial wrt determining the probability of origin. The AP guy who started this has a history of working closely with Lanny Davis. Mr. Davis has more than adequate experience in news cycles and leak timing.

A dot here and a dot there and pretty soon you’ve got a picture (especially if you’re a pointillist).