THE FRIDAY NIGHT DOCUMENT DUMP & THE SUNDAY MORNING CANDIDATE THUMP

It's been the Bush administration that perfected the late Friday "document dump," to get embarrassing material out into the mainstream press just as everybody's leaving work for the weekend. Fewer people notice, and it seems to work.

Congrats to new NC House Speaker Joe Hackney for dumping the Jim Black-commissioned $80,000 "history" (all 23 badly written and inexpertly typed pages of it) this past Friday. He did exactly the right thing. It's a Jim Black problem and not a Joe Hackney problem, and since North Carolina taxpayers paid for the thing, they ought to get a look at it. It made the front pages of Saturday's N&O and will quickly -- and deservedly -- die a quick death as yet another example of why we're glad we have a new speaker of the NC House.

(Can't fail to mention, either, that the N&O appears to have rewarded Hackney for that opening candor: This morning's N&O contains the headline, "New speaker works hard, shoots straight," which is obvious good will from a newspaper that can do NC politicos real damage.)

For just one example, the N&O also chose today to front-page a snide suggestion that presidential candidate John Edwards has no right earthly to be an advocate for the poor while living in a $6 million house in Chapel Hill. The nerve of some rich people to think beyond their own wealth!