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Our answer from Aaron Brown sounds a bit unbelieving:

From: "Brown, Aaron"
Subject: Re: This is what I mean: Crowley channeling Safire? Coincidence?
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 10:35:49 -0400

Yeah, it was cool. All we mainstream media types got together over lunch and hatched this plan. Safire paid but we were all there.

Well, ok. Let's look at the tape, as they say.

Sources: CNN NewsNight transcript and The New York Times:

Crowley's opening:

CROWLEY (voice over): Sinking in the polls last year, John Kerry struggled to explain how having voted for war in Iraq, his policy was different from the president's.

Safire's second sentence:

Set aside Senator John Kerry's lurch toward the doves during the primaries to derail the Howard Dean bandwagon.

Crowley's second point:

CROWLEY: But plan for plan there is not much that separates the two...In fact, the president's speech Monday had many of the bullet points of the Kerry plan.

Safire's third sentence:

Consider instead the nondebate about Iraq now going on in the general election race.

Safire next lists Kerry's stances, beginning with that we should internationalize the situation in Iraq, and involve NATO:

Four weeks ago, at Westminster College in Fulton, Mo.,, Kerry laid out three basic options: (1) "continue to do this largely by ourselves" (would never work); (2) "pull out and hope against hope that the worst won't happen" (worst would happen); or (3) "get the Iraqi people and the world's major powers invested with us in building Iraq's future" (that's it!).

In his address the other night, President Bush agreed with Kerry's unassailable Option 3 by recounting his own five-step plan:

(1) Turn over sovereignty as promised in a month, the date O.K.'d by Kerry; (2) help establish security (like Kerry, Bush is ready to send over more troops if our generals ask, and they'd better not ask); (3) "rebuilding that nation's infrastructure," echoing Kerry's call for "tangible benefits of reconstruction in the form of jobs, infrastructure and services"; (4) "Next month at the NATO summit in Istanbul," Bush promised to "discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy." As Kerry said last month: "He must also convince NATO as an organization that Iraq should be a NATO mission."

Crowley's very next points are the very same--in the same order: internationalize the effort, and involve NATO:

CROWLEY: Kerry wants U.N. involvement in the political future of Iraq. The U.S. and Britain are shopping a resolution of support for the Iraqi transitional government. Kerry said the president should bring NATO in.

KERRY: The president must immediately and personally reach out and convince them that Iraqi security and stability is that global interest that all must contribute to.

CROWLEY: NATO meets in Istanbul next month. So, check.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At the summit, we will discuss NATO's role in helping Iraq build and secure its democracy.

Crowley's conclusion?

CROWLEY: With so much agreement, the political advantage would seem to fall to the president.

Safire's summation?

The calendar suggests that June may be Bush's comeback month.

Leaving aside the more general fact that both Crowley and Safire decided to do the same story--i.e., point out the "similarities" between the positions-- and the fact that to do so both recognized they could only use quotes from Bush's Monday night speech (prior to which, of course, his positions were different)--leaving all that aside---how likely is that that they would do pieces so very, very similar in the same news cycle?

We don't know how likely it is that Safire would spring for lunch, but we frankly have trouble believing Candy Crowley and William Safire came up with such similar stories so closely resembling each other by accident.

We just don't believe it.