[Reposted in Firefox so that ¶s work -- some things are still not on a roll . . . ]

It goes without saying . . . but like a lot of things that go without saying, it doesn't hurt to say it occasionally.

One thing the left has going for it lately is reporting.  We talk a lot about message management.  We've got to get the "frame" right, put the right "spin" on things, and so on.  Great.  Facts alone don't win elections.

But from time to time it doesn't hurt to have some of those facts.  Like, there is no KFC in Fallujah, as you can find out if you take the clever step of calling KFC.  Or, like, shortly after McCain reversed himself and endorsed offshore drilling, a rather surprising number of low-level employees in this one oil firm donated $28,500 to the RNC and/or $2300 directly to McCain.

In a sense this isn't news.  We all remember what happened with the firing of US attorneys, and we've become accustomed to depending on TPM for facts that get ignored or muffled elsewhere.  But there's one other detail about today that might be worth highlighting.  These newly-uncovered facts about Hess are very well timed to coincide with Obama's theme for this week -- New Energy for America -- and specifically, with Obama's new ad taking aim at McCain for accepting $2mil in oil company contributions.

It's helpful when themes converge like this.  Sometimes one scandal isn't enough to get the MSM to pay attention; but if you've got two, you've got a story.

I'm not saying that TPM and Obama are coordinating their messages.  It's much more likely an accident.  (Apparently you can't throw a stone in RNC headquarters without hitting oil money.)  But whether it's coordinated, or just the effect of a lot of people thinking alike and working along parallel tracks, the effect of all the hard work is that this time the left seems to have, not just more facts, but more message discipline than the right.  And that's surprising enough, I think, to qualify as news.