Put down the New York Times...

or Washington Post or Philadelphia Inquirer or Nashville Tennessean, Montgomery Advertiser, Daily Oklahoman, or whatever you are reading because The Beagle is about to do what excited Beagles do when they get news releases from high powered former media experts from Washington, D.C. (The Beagle cannot recommend putting down the Denver Post because its coverage is so thin.)

The Beagle, standing once again on principle, will not actually use this statement because it includes a formulation The Beagle finds absurd, to wit, "The following statement may be attributed to [high powered Washington, D.C. official who decidedly never said anything like the following...].

Out west, where Beagles are Beagles and speak their minds freely, we would prefer to have such statements couched in more realistic terms, i.e. "The following statement was written in a fury by a harried, overpaid staff person irritated because he or she was in danger of arriving late at a power lunch at which he or she hopes to be offered a better job."