The Washington Post led today's edition with a large-font, top-of-the-front-page article entitled "Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable" that opened as follows: President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq. That would be a major news story (though many have expected such a move, eventually). Unfortunately, the article utterly fails to substantiate it. The article has no quotations from Democrats, or even Republicans, even referring to timetables at all. "Democrats remain deeply divided over how far to give in to the White House," the article goes on to say. This is "why have you been beating your wife?" logic. Nowhere does the article point to evidence of a Democratic division over a presumed decision to "give in to the White House." This is editorial malpractice unworthy of Washington Post front-page coverage of an important story. By contrast, the New York Times covers this same non-development in a story that makes no reference to "concessions" or "backing" down but quotes at least five Senate Democrats by name about the difficulties of finding a consensus withing their caucus on withdrawl timetables and war funding.