I don’t know if they are all getting their talking point from the same place, or just being so unoriginal that they’ve seized on the same talking point without any thought. My guess is they’ve all been listening to a common source whose bidding they have no problem doing.I noticed the talking point first, yesterday, when Douglas Holtz-Eakin attacked Heritage Action for America for expressing its concerns with the Paul Ryan-Patty Murray deal. Basically, if Republican Leaders have a talking point, you can expect Doug’s group to parrot it.He tweeted, “.@Heritage_Action opposes deal that is not yet a deal on basis of specifics that are not yet specific.”Today I see the same thing from McKay Coppins at Buzzfeed, Kasie Hunt at NBC, and Shane Goldmacher at National Journal. Dave Weigel has something on this too. In fact, in just the last twelve hours all the kids in the press corps have picked up and circulated the talking point — the herd mentality never fails to disappoint.It’s as if they got off the record briefings from someone who threw out that talking point and told them to fly away with it.According to Holtz-Eakin, Coppins, Hunt, Goldmacher, and Weigel, conservatives cannot voice their opinion about a deal until it is fully written. Never mind that the Capitol leaks like a sieve. Never mind that basic details of the plan are already being circulated. Never mind that once the deal is actually in legislative form, those who decide to oppose it will have only a day or two to do so.On December 5th, the liberal Talking Points Memo began writing about the deal. One day before that, the Politico had a story about the potential budget deal. [Update: Sahil Kapur tells me he wrote about this same deal on October 30th!!]Just yesterday, Bloomberg has a report with the headline “Budget Deal in U.S. Would Reduce Automatic Spending Cuts.” According to Bloomberg,

The deal being crafted doesn’t slow the growth of the national debt and doesn’t rein in the corporate tax breaks Democrats targeted for elimination. The accord also wouldn’t fully replace the spending cuts known as sequestration.

Here’s a report from In The Capital, which in turn references this Washington Post story from December 8th.A Boston Herald editorial from this morning has some of the details of the plan. The Washington Post’s Wonkblog knows enough about a deal that isn’t yet a deal to be able to report that frequent fliers will be hurt in the deal. Last, but not least, the Wall Street Journal has details of what will be in the plan.All of these press reports from this morning were developed over the last day or so at the same time conservatives were getting the same information. And with that same information, conservatives began dissenting from the framework of what everyone knows will be in the deal.But there is no deal, according to Holtz-Eakin, McKay Coppins, Kasie Hunt, and Shane Goldmacher. Still, the Washington Post, Boston Herald, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, and others are given a pass by them to report on the terms of the no deal while they will not let conservatives get away with it. By the way, not one of them criticized Harry Reid, during the government shut down, for dismissing Republican plans before knowing what would be in those plans. Only conservatives can be criticized for that.Again, I have to wonder if they’ve all gotten that talking point from a common source, or if they are just that unoriginal they can’t come up with different story lines. Either way, they’re only pushing this narrative out against conservatives who, based on press reports, know enough to know they don’t like what’s coming. If the press reports are wrong, Coppings, Hunt, and Goldmacher should say so. But they’d never be courageous enough to bite the hand that feeds them.UPDATE: There is no budget plan, so the left will attack conservatives for opposing what is not there, but by God the left will poll to find out people support the lack of a plan! This makes Coppins, Hunt, and Goldmacher look even more ridiculous. There’s apparently enough data to poll Americans on the Ryan-Murray plan, but conservatives are not allowed to voice their opinion?!