Today’s question is for Washington Post reporters Peter Baker and Dan Balz.

LP: Gentlemen, in a recent “analysis” you granted anonymity to a senior White House official so he/she could “speak more freely” about the administration’s Iraq “policy,” at which point the source more or less commenced regurgitating a standard talking points memo. This decision on your part shed no new light on the situation in Iraq and resulted in a well-earned round of criticism from Media Matters, which wondered why the spokesperson would need anonymity in order to pretty much parrot Bush’s 6.28 speech at Fort Bragg. In light of all this, would you take a few moments to explain what you see as the key difference between “reporter” and “Karl Rove’s typist”?