Rachel Maddow takes on the hacks over at Politico for playing stenographer for the Republicans.

As Dave noted earlier -- Republicans postpone Obama meeting to avoid another ass-kicking, and then lie about it

And here's more from The Maddow Blog -- Where nonsense comes from:

Tonight we're going to look at how pure media nonsense gets made. Exhibit A: Politico's story about Republicans bagging the Slurpee Summit because President Obama had "crashed" their Baltimore meeting in January.

Here's the key bit from Politico's original story, as posted by TPM just after midnight -- pay careful attention to the parts in bold:

The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama crashed a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans.

Obama's last-minute decision to address the House GOP retreat - and the one-sided televised presidential lecture many Republicans decried as a political ambush - has left a lingering distrust of Obama invitations and a wariness about accommodating every scheduling request emanating from the West Wing, aides tell POLITICO.

"He has a ways to go to rebuild the trust," said a top Republican Hill staffer. "The Baltimore thing was unbelievable. There were [House Republicans] who only knew Obama was coming when they saw Secret Service guys scouting out the place."

And here's what producer Rebekah Dryden finds on Politico now -- same story, different opening:

The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama dominated a GOP meeting in Baltimore and delivered a humiliating rebuke to House Republicans.

The one-sided televised presidential lecture, which many Republicans decried as a political ambush -- Obama's staff wanted the event to be broadcast and GOP aides agreed reluctantly at the last minute -- has left a lingering distrust of Obama invitations and a wariness about accommodating every scheduling request emanating from the West Wing, aides tell POLITICO.

"He has a ways to go to rebuild the trust," said a top Republican Hill staffer. "The Baltimore thing was unbelievable."

Hey, where'd that stuff in bold go?

And here's part of Rachel's wrap up on their shameless stenography and the beltway Villagers willingness to repeat it.

MADDOW: They're now quoting a source that we know lied to them. A source that we know is telling lies for the purposes of political spin and even as that has been proven by Politico's own editing, they keep in the spin; they keep it in there.

This is beltway journalism today. And this is drove the beltway conversation today. Republicans say President Obama ambushed them. Republicans say Obama broke their trust. Republicans also say they're fiscally conservative. Republicans say they're cracking down on our national debt by cutting earmarks.

It is true that Republicans have been saying all these things. That is not the same thing as those things being true.