The two secret ingredients in putting this on the wire, we'd venture, are Dicker and Hillary.

Here's what the Note has to say:

"The Associated Press's Albany guy Marc Humbert was apparently pulled off his long-time beat covering New York politics and now JUST covers Howard Wolfson. LINK

Humbert's running string of quotes from Wolfson (a state Democratic Party and Sen. Clinton mouth piece) mocking Gov. Pataki's poll standing and presidential hopes made it onto the wire yesterday, and the New York Daily News' Joe Mahoney was forced to slavishly follow the dog-bites-dog 'story' of Democrat attacking a Republican. LINK

So was the New York Times' Ray Hernandez, whose comedic second paragraph says 'The strategist, Howard Wolfson, made it clear that he was commenting only as a spokesman for the New York State Democratic Party and not as Mrs. Clinton's representative.' LINK"