Among Democrats and in the liberal blogosphere, there’s a recurring theme to recent discussions of the Coleman-Franken contest. It goes like this: Coleman knows he will lose but, aided and abetted by Congressional Repubs and by the party’s donor base, he is dragging out the process to deny the Dems their 59th vote in the Senate.

An impressive list of such pieces has run recently in Politico, The Nation, Politics in Minnesota and elsewhere. This one, in The Hill a week ago, may have kicked off the flurry. As each is published, the pieces are then circulated via online press release by either the DFL Party or the Franken campaign, which may help the next one come into existence.

(In case you don't get the parties' emails, this tactic of circulating stories that advance the party line is standard practice, seeming to say "this isn't us saying this, this is a reputable publication." The MNGOP has a long-standing series of press releases titled "They Said It," which emphasizes quotes from Democrats saying things that are helpful to Republicans.)

In this flurry, the evidence in each piece is the same. The case drags on (true), Franken has already won the recount (technically true, but the election contest now on trial in St. Paul is the step that comes after the recount), Republicans benefit from every day that Senate Democrats have to try to pass their agenda without Franken's vote (undoubtedly true, as your humble ink-stained wretch himself wrote some weeks ago), and the fashionable and impressive new fact -- Congressional Republicans have been maxing out the donations from the PACs they control to help Coleman pay his lawyers.

The Coleman campaign Web site even released this online video in which Republican members of Congress ask for donations to keep Coleman's case going.

The writers of these pieces don't generally say it in their own voices, but each piece contains a quote from a Democratic official that flatly says, or strongly implies, that the delay is the only point in the continuance of the charade, since the Republicans know that Franken is the rightful winner. In the Politico piece, it's this:

“It’s clear that national Republicans see the vacancy in Minnesota as one of the few arrows in their quiver to obstruct Democrats in the Senate from getting real change passed,” said Eric Schultz, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In PIM it's this:

"Now we know why Norm Coleman keeps fanning his lawsuit in the face of certain failure: to help Washington Republicans block the change that Minnesotans voted for so overwhelmingly," Minnesota DFL Chairman Brian Melendez said in a statement today.

The Hill got this one, from Schultz's boss:

“It is both a disservice to the people of Minnesota, as well as to the national agenda, to keep the efforts that former Sen. Coleman is pursuing [going],” said Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

There is a problem with this recurring theme. None of the stories has any direct evidence that Republicans are stalling. The alternative theory, that they hope and believe Coleman may still end up winning a second term, covers all the same facts. And when, in some of the pieces, a Republican is asked about the stalling allegation, they say that's not it at all (although some are honest enough, especially if not named, to acknowledge that their party is benefiting from the delay).

There was one exception, but it turned out to be a doctored quote.

As originally published, the piece by the Nation's Washington correspondent John Nichols quoted National Republican Senatorial Committee (and Texas Sen.) John Cornyn saying that Coleman “feels like he owes it to the voters of Minnesota and his colleagues here" to keep the seat vacant. "He realizes how important retaining that seat is to us.”

I was troubled by the fact that the key words, in which Cornyn suggests that Coleman's goal is to to keep the seat vacant, were not in quotes. I called Nichols, whom I have met and whom I like, and who was a model of open-mindedness when I challenged the unquoted insertion in the middle of Cornyn's statement. After checking his notes, he told me that my skepticism was well-founded, that Cornyn did not say that the goal was to keep the seat vacant. He said the goal was to keep it in Republican hands by winning the contest.

Nichols said he believes the Republicans are stalling, but that he shouldn't have put an acknowledgement of such an agenda into Cornyn's mouth. (He said he would repair the quote as soon as we hung up, which he did, even credited me in the update with bringing the problem to his attention. A classy move, after being embarrassed by my challenge.)

I guess we're getting into liberal media bias territory here, which is a whole other (20) posts. Writers for The Nation make no secret of their ideologies. Other publications mentioned above are at various places on the objectivity spectrum, and some of the pieces tap-danced more or less deftly within the he-said-she-said norms of journalism, although I doubt that an open-minded reader will have much trouble inferring what the author thinks the Repubs are up to. The PIM piece, for example, states flatly that the new online video of nine Republican senators, one congressman and the chairman of the RNC soliciting contributions for Coleman "bolsters the idea" that their goal is to keep the seat vacant as long as possible. But if you watch the video, none of them encourages delay or suggests that they believe Coleman will lose.

Oftentimes, the headline writer, who is so limited in space, will have to skip past all the tap-dancing and just tell you what the point of the story is. The headlines on these stories are: PIM : "GOP strategy: Keep the Senate seat empty." Hill: "GOP senators in no hurry for Minn. seat to be filled." Nation: "GOP Senators Spending Keeps Minn. Seat Vacant." and Politico: "GOP dead set against 59th Dem."

Me, I don't play those objectivity games much any more, and am glad to be rid of them. If it's true, and it may be, that the Republican strategy is mostly about stalling, I call that reprehensible. As an old man who thinks too much, I would also say it's an oversimplification to suggest that these Repubs either believe Coleman still might win or they are just trying to delay the inevitable swearing-in of Al Franken . They might easily believe that the first is still possible and if it doesn't turn out that way, the second is still worth making a video, which, if true, is only about 30 percent as reprehensible. But until we get the minutes of the backroom meetings, I'm pretty sure we don't have much evidence to convict them of the more reprehensible offense.

What think?