by Oliver Willis

So it appears that the Romney campaign briefed multiple news outlets about the behind the scenes of how they hid Paul Ryan’s selection from the media. I’m not saying this isn’t a story, but the way this is being rolled out is pretty ridiculous.

All of these news outlets and several of their writers began tweeting out links to the story at midnight, which would indicate they were all under some kind of embargo. But they’re all basically telling the same story!

I feel like these guys all decided to embrace their inner Tom Clancy or Robert Ludlum while writing this fanfic.

It’s also worth noting that with very few variations, this is the version of the story of how Romney selected Ryan that the campaign wants to be told.

AP: “This was the culmination of a methodical, highly secretive process that involved 10 top Romney staffers, a volunteer team of attorneys, a secret secure room in Romney’s Boston headquarters, and reams of paper on a long and then a short list of potential candidates.”

Buzzfeed: “A secure room, a disguise, and an escape.”

The New York Times: “It required painstakingly planned skulduggery, which the campaign outlined in detail, late on Saturday afternoon.”

LA Times: “Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential nominee was the culmination of a cloak-and-dagger tale – Ryan cutting through the woods near his home to avoid a network reporter and wearing a ball cap and sunglasses inside airports to avoid being recognized – that speaks to the secrecy, paranoia and high stakes involved in such a sensitive decision.”

Reuters: “Paul Ryan’s path to becoming Mitt Romney’s Republican vice presidential running mate was steeped in secrecy, from an incognito trip to meet Romney to a furtive walk through the woods near his boyhood Wisconsin home.”

Politico: “The stealthy meeting was the climax of a bruising four-month vetting process that started with 20 candidates and ended with three finalists”

Huffington Post: “That was just the first chapter of a cloak-and-dagger, Hollywood-style operation carried out by Myers and the Romney campaign to offer the job to the 42-year old, and then to announce him to the supporters and the press, all without spoiling the surprise.”

NBC: “Even the rollout was an example of both a flawlessly executed bit of secrecy and stagecraft and improvisation when events did not go as the campaign planned.”

Washington Post: “Ryan’s journey to Norfolk, detailed by Romney adviser Beth Myers, illustrates the elaborate lengths to which the Romney campaign went to keep the vice presidential selection under wraps in the 10 days between when Romney settled on Ryan and when the GOP ticket was revealed.”

ABC: “Clandestine flights. A slight disguise. Long drives to out-of-the-way airports by an aide’s 19-year-old son. An afternoon dash through the wooded ravine behind Paul Ryan’s house in Janesville, Wis.”

Boston Globe: “Ryan was about to receive the news that he would be Mitt Romney’s choice as running mate, but the delivery of that news — and much of Ryan’s movements and conversations in the days that followed — had to be carried out with the calibrated precision and secrecy of a sting operation.”

CBS: “The story could have been ripped straight from the pages of a Cold War-era spy novel: There were sunglasses and baseball caps, decoys and back routes through the woods.”

The Atlantic: “By the time the press found out Paul Ryan would be Romney’s vice presidential nominee, Ryan had already escaped his home in Wisconsin — eluding a media stakeout by sneaking out the back door, traipsing through the woods, and coming out the other side, where a car awaited.”

USA Today: “ The night before Rep. Paul Ryan officially became Mitt Romney’s running mate, his road to the vice presidential nomination went through the woods in the back of his Janesville, Wis., home.”

Wall Street Journal: “Getting to the moment of the surprise announcement was a long and tortured process.”

Yahoo!: “Paul briskly walked through a gully, past the tree where he had built a tree fort as a child, and toward the driveway of his childhood home.”

Time: “Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate was the product of months of meticulous planning marked by locked rooms, deceptive flight patterns and surreptitious forays through the Wisconsin woods.”

Clown media, bro.

*This article was first published on The Daily Banter.

*Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.