How else could he have gotten this story so completely backward?

BLITZER: Senate Democrats are smiling all the way to the bank in the congressional election year. The Democratic committee that handles Senate races is reporting $25 million in the bank, more than double the $10.5 million the Republican version of the group has on hand. Democrats say it’s the first time in their memory they have that kind of edge over the Republicans when it comes to money. But the Republican Party as a whole continues to outraise the Democrats by leaps and bounds. The RNC reports a record $101 million raised in 2005. The Democrats haven’t reported their fundraising totals for last year yet.

Here’s how the Washington Post played the story two hours prior to Blitzer’s broadcast:

RNC Has Huge Fundraising Edge; Senate Dems Set Off-Year $ Record
With official financial reports due at the Federal Election Commission by Jan. 31, the national party committees are beginning to release their fundraising figures for 2005.
The Republican National Committee raised $102 million last year and had $34 million in the bank at the end of the year. The Democratic National Committee brought in $51 million and ended the year with $5.5 million. The $28.5 million spread between the RNC and DNC is the largest cash-on-hand differential between the two national party committees in more than 15 years. […]
On the Senate side, the Democrats’ campaign arm continued to maintain a comfortable financial margin over its Republican counterpart. For the year, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised $44 million — a record for off-year fundraising by the committee. The previous record was in 2001 when the committee brought in $37 million in a combination of hard and soft dollars. The DSCC ended 2005 with $25 million in the bank.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee raised $35.5 million in 2005 and ended the year with a $10.5 million warchest. In a briefing earlier this week, NRSC Chairwoman Elizabeth Dole (N.C.) said the committee had invested heavily in donor prospecting in 2005, a strategic move that “pays off in the second year of the cycle.”

The Democrats couldn’t have hoped for a better news report than the one Blitzer delivered. Is he just pulling DNC press releases off the fax machine and reading them on the air?

Video here.