First, anxious to fill their new private homes, the Clintons received $190,000 worth of gifts in the last year. Second, Hillary pursued this by registering like a bride for gift at Borsheim's Fine Jewelry & Gifts. Third, they moved fast, because once Hillary was sworn in as New York's new senator, she would be barred from accepting gifts worth more than $50.

The first detail showed the Clintons were greedy. The second? That they were tacky. The third, that they were duplicitous, plotting to circumvent Senate ethics laws.

From the perspective of the press, just one of those items would have constituted a good news story. A combination of any two was worth a running commentary. But all three justified a bona fide feeding frenzy.

Problem is, none of them are true. The gifts in question were received over an eight-year period, not one. Hillary was never registered at Borsheim's. And the Senate gift ban would not have forbidden Sen.Clinton from receiving all the generous items. None of that, though, has gotten in the way of the press telling a story it likes.

On President Clinton's final day in office, in accordance with federal law the couple disclosed that for the year 2000 they had accepted $190,027 worth of gifts, including sweaters, lamps, golf clubs, china and glass sculptures. That's an extraordinary amount, nearly double what the Clintons had received during their first seven years in the White House, combined. (For some context, during their four years in the White House, the least amount of gifts George and Barbara Bush accepted in any given year was $21,000; the most the Clintons accepted during their first four years was $16,000.)

An important clue for 2000's lofty price tag, though, was included right on the Clintons' official Executive Branch Personnel Public Financial Disclosure Report, which was distributed to the press: "This list includes gifts received over the last eight years, but which were not accepted by the Clintons until last year." (As gifts accumulate at the White House, first families can wait until their final year before officially accepting them or not.)

It couldn't be more simple; last year the Clintons officially accepted $190,000 worth of gifts which they had received during the last eight years. And how was it reported?

The Associated Press: "In the year before President Clinton left office and Hillary Rodham Clinton entered the Senate, the first couple received $190,027 worth of furniture and other gifts."

New York Daily News : Friends "showered the Clintons with $190,027 in gifts in 2000."

U.S. News & World Report: "The Clintons got gifts worth $190,027 last year."

(In an odd bit of schizophrenia, the Weekly Standard mocked the Clintons for "rattling their begging bowls last year" for gifts. Then two sentences later the magazine quoted from the couple's disclosure form, which stipulated the gifts were received "over the last eight years.")

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