Ha!  With their multiple layers of fact checkers, editors and overall scores of smart people, the LA Times still manages to beclown itself.

Their ace reporter Tina Sussman wrote an article on the Whitney Houston funeral, and interviewed this guy, Greg Packer, who has made a career out of punking professional reporters by telling them what they want to hear.

Here is Greg himself, whose face ought to be on a NOT wanted poster in every newsroom.

He's so famous for doing this that no real reporter ought to be fooled, but I guess there is always a new sucker working at a main stream paper who is ready to believe just about anything.

Patterico, the blogger who makes it his job to point out the foibles of the Times, is gleefully right on this story, calling this Greg's greatest triumph to date.