I read this on Drudge last night, not realizing it was verbatim from the coming story.

WASHINGTON, July 14 - In the annals of Washington conspiracy theories, the latest one, about Vice President Dick Cheney’s future on the Republican ticket, is as ingenious as it is far-fetched. But that has not stopped it from racing through Republican and Democratic circles like the latest low-carb diet.

The newest theory - advanced privately by prominent Democrats, including members of Congress - holds that Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush. The dismissed physician, Dr. Gary Malakoff, who four years ago declared that Mr. Cheney was “up to the task of the most sensitive public office” despite a history of heart disease, was dropped from Mr. Cheney’s medical team because of an addiction to prescription drugs.

From a hack Internet journalist, fine, but from the so-called most respectable news source in the country? I love how they cloak the news value of this by reporting on the rumors — it’s very Fox News chic. The job of the media is provide a foundation of fact, not to perpetuate lies and wishes. I hate Cheney and I don’t doubt he’s capable of this sort of thing, but the mindset of this story is identical to Judith Miller’s still-exclusive-to-this-day report about the WMDs in Iraq. They throw out a story to make a splash and worry about its validity later.