Oh Howie…

In his online column, Howard Kurtz breaks down yesterday’s whodunit over Dana Milbank’s column and the “mystery guest.”

ABC’s The Note was fast off the mark:

“Quick: where did Sen. DeWine dine yesterday for lunch? (Either we are right, or we have done you all a service and crossed one name off the list.)”

…

National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru tried to knock that down: “But remember, the candidate said that he ‘agrees with Bush’s veto of human embryonic stem cell research.’ Kean doesn’t.”

Another NR columnist, Jim Geraghty , dug up an old quote of Steele’s that sounded like Mr. X’s luncheon remarks.

And then, late in the day, this scoop was e-mailed around:

“ABC News has learned that the GOP Senate candidate who anonymously described his Republican affiliation as a ‘scarlet letter’ to the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank and others on Monday is none other than Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele. Developing. . . . “

But Mr. Kurtz: Have we forgotten that FishbowlDC told you that “The good money is on Michael Steele” well before all of these people? (like 7:34am early?)

Moving on…Kurtz asks many of the obvious questions about this weird episode: Why did the Note rush to identify the Mystery GOPer as Ohio Sen. DeWine, then never admit the error? Why did the reporters agree to “such a strange arrangement”? And how in the world did Steele, who should only be doing things that are going to help him get elected, hope to benefit from talking to reporters anonymously? Even if he wanted his ID to leak out, as Kurtz says, “Steele gets the worst of both worlds: His comments are made public and he looks wimpy.”

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