On The Today Show Tuesday morning, NBC's Mike Viqueira crowed: "It's a mystery solved!"

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza -- in a Tuesday morning post hilariously headlined "Sanford Returns!" -- reported that Sanford "will return to the state tomorrow after spending the last five days hiking the Appalachian Trail

In fact, the Post fell so hard for the Appalachian Trail line that they even ran a story -- "For the Gov, A Little Me Time," by reporter Will Haygood, highlighting the quirkiness of Sanford's decision to "trek off into the woods," without ever stopping to ask whether tale was true. For good measure, the story reported: "The governor, it should be noted, is quite happily married" -- something it had no way of knowing.

And the Wall Street Journal headlined its post: "Once Lost, Gov. Sanford Is Now Found," and wrote a lede similar to Cillizza's.

Too often

the press treats public statements from elected officials' offices

as self-evidently accurate

people will read blogs