The WaPo erroneous report on Feith IG report

Power Line has an email passed on from one of its readers from a reporter unhappy to be associated with the story:

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One of our readers has now penetrated inside the Post through an email exchange with Jeff Smith, one of the Post reporters "credited" with the story. Smith is unhappy at being associated with the debacle. This is what Smith emailed to our reader:

I agree with you that this was an egregious error. I also had nothing to do with it. All I did was obtain a copy of the unclassified summary of the IG report and write a precisely correct account, which I turned over to the other reporters. I'm not happy my name was put on that story by the editors, and I was astonished by the mistake. I blew the whistle on it internally. So don't attribute the mistake to me.

Cheers,

Jeff Smith

So someone--Pincus is an obvious candidate--had the two-page public portion of the IG report, and also had an accurate account thereof, but nevertheless managed to misrepresent the report's contents to make it look more critical of Feith's group than it actually was. Is there any possible explanation for that "egregious" and "astonish[ing]" error, other than a political agenda that trumps all else?

I can understand Jeff Smith's chagrin. I think this falls under the category of "too good to check." Levin made the mistake of reading his own conclusions (I guess they sounded good to him to.) and the other reporters at the Post would not let their great fact checking get in the way of a good story. The editor who read Smiths accurate portrayal of the document and failed to question the final product also deserves some boos on this fiasco too.