Update: Politico, “Meet” and CBS

The Monday Conspiracy Theory we dropped earlier isn’t really a conspiracy at all: There’s something to it and we’ve dug a big deeper to find out.

The reason “Meet the Press” had to identify the Politico’s Roger Simon as a “syndicated columnist” instead of “Politico’s chief political columnist” on yesterday’s show is because of Politico’s relationship with CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Because of that partnership (whereby Politico staffers appear every other week), no Politico employees are allowed on either “Meet the Press” or “This Week with George Stephanopolous” (“The Chris Matthews Show” does not apply here).

Because of the Politico/CBS deal, the Politico and CBS were not happy that Simon was asked to be on “Meet,” but a deal was brokered in the form of Simon’s “syndicated columnist” tag.

That said, don’t expect to see Simon (or any other Politico staffer) on the show anytime soon–we hear that this week was a rare, even one-time, exception.

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