The Occasional Observer

The WaPo is apparently consolidating its hold as the MSM's "newspaper of record", supplanting the NY Times by doing what the Times used to do: a center-left editorial page, coupled with actual hard news.

Check out this story, a "fact-check" of sorts, on Palin's claim to have gotten the ball rolling towards a major new natural gas pipeline.

The story makes a few main points:

1) Points out how Palin took on the BP, Conoco and ExxonMobil when they were trying to cut a sweetheart deal under Gov. Murkowski and with the support of VP Cheney and Sen Stevens.
2) By dictating terms to the industry, and then opening the door to any firm willing to meet their terms, Alaska was able to get an agreement in place that was more favorable than the preliminary agreement Murkowski had struck with the three original firms.
3) Points out how there are still many hurdles for this plan to payoff--much wrangling over getting the pipeline in place, and then forging an agreement for the three petrol companies to ship their gas through another firm's pipeline. Everything that's been accomplished so far is prelude.

What makes this news and different from, say, network TV news or the Times, is where the Post ends the article. I was pretty sure the typical MSM article would have ended here:

BP and Conoco Phillips have announced plans to build a pipeline of their own without the state's backing -- a sign that the political and economic wrangling over this immense and risky project is far from over.

The Post's editors wisely realized that the real story in this case is not was hasn't yet been accomplished, but how much has. So they end it here:

But it is also a sign that Ms. Palin's outflanking of the oil companies injected some competition and urgency into a process that was previously stalled. Perhaps her Democratic opponent for the governorship in 2006, who campaigned on similar ideas, would have achieved these results. Nevertheless, Ms. Palin actually did.