Dem Picks Gephardt as VP Candidate

So read the sub-head of this morning's New York Post. Given that Deborah Orin, the Post's Washington bureau chief, is one of the best political reporters in the game, how could the paper have made such an embarrassing mistake? Explanation #1: Orin was on vacation. Explanation #2: Orin was deliberately misled by the Kerry campaign. Explanation #3: Someone in the Kerry campaign was deliberately misled by someone else in the Kerry campaign, knowing that the first someone would likely talk to Orin.

Explanation #1 seems unlikely (Orin was almost certainly on the case, knowing that the Kerry VP choice was coming today). So the question is: was it #2 or #3?

None of the Above! The editors did it! Which is why the story was so weirdly written and why the "apology" was so opaque.