It's fascinating how the press first contrives a story and then its herd mentality takes over and runs with it, hyping it to the skies regardless of the truth. The latest exercise began Wednesday afternoon at Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld's press conference. After someone from Reuters first posed the question, CNN's Barbara Starr asked it again: why Mr. Rumsfeld turned down a Senate Armed Services Committee request to testify at a special hearing on Iraq on Thursday. Rumsfeld answered that because he was making himself available to the whole senate answering questions on the war that same morning he'd determined that he couldn't do both. It went all down hill from there because the Dems know the earlier session Thursday won't be before the tv cameras. They want bread and circuses, not answers to questions.

Lolita Baldor, an AP reporter, wrote a breathless piece in which she said Rumsfeld's action was, "...raising a new furor on Capitol Hill over the three-year-old conflict." The furor is limited in her story to a chest-deep harrumph from Sen. Kennedy ("America is in deep trouble in Iraq, yet Secretary Rumsfeld refuses to explain and defend his policies in full public view tomorrow") and a nice letter from Hillary asking Mr. Rumsfeld to change his mind. No Republicans - not even John Warner who could easily be confused for a Dem - were quoted.

From here, it's going to follow the usual pattern. The New York Times will have a Doug Jehl story about how Rumsfeld is hiding from the devastating questions he'd face (the secret list of which will appear in Jehl's story). That will precede MoDo's Sunday vespers session about why we need a female SecDef), Chris Matthews will have Sen. Dodd on to say that the Pentagon is an Augean Stable that needs to be flushed out, WaPo's Dana Milbank will have a front page above-the-fold piece on Senate Dems' outrage and Katie Couric will be overheard on a shuttle flight shouting into her cell phone about how she needs to get on the air early to make sure this story is treated with the seriousness it deserves. (And while all this media talent was spinning up its macrodander, Rumsfeld decided to show up after all. He's just mischevious enough to do that just to see the media continue to spin.) But how do stories like this get concocted?

The answer isn't available from AP. I called night bureau chief Robert Glass who, when I asked him about it, sounded as calm as Leo Bloom after Max Bialystock screamed at him. (He told me to send my inquiry to editor Alan Fram. I did and have not received an answer last night or today.)

Where's the Dem war room that is running this show? How is the Dem spin machine driving these reporters so relentlessly? Who is the Dem Moriarty at the center of the web that pulls the media in and manipulates it so? Or is it, as we expect, just Teddy and Chris Dodd chugging scotch in some back room in the Capitol and dialing random numbers? Stay tuned. This is gonna be fun to watch. And please do watch. Something tells me you won't be seeing any Republicans on the nightly news asking why the Dems are demanding we cut and run. It's not like the Dems have anything else to say.