That irrepressible serial exaggerator, TPM‘s headline writer, is at it again. Here’s the blurb he produced for a TPM Muckraker post by Zachary Roth:

Late last year after Merrill’s buyout by Bank of America was assured, Merrill traders reportedly resumed gambling on mortgage assets — racking up huge losses that led to the multi-billion bailout of B Of A last week.

As the post itself makes clear, this resumed gambling on mortgage assets contributed a totally unknown amount to Merrill Lunch’s fourth quarter losses:

Merrill’s massive fourth quarter losses, which prompted B of A to seek a second government bailout, weren’t caused only by investments made before the collapse of the mortgage market, and the extent of the financial crisis, became apparent. Rather, they were in part the result of continuing to buy bad mortgage assets into the fall.

The post does not begin to imply that “huge losses” from the resumed gambling on mortgage assets in any way “led to the multi-billion bailout of B Of A last week”.

Heck, it does not even say that the resumed gambling resulted in “huge losses”.

Given their headline writer’s recent record, it is both astounding and ludicrous that TPM has still not realized that they have a serious problem with the accuracy of their headline writer’s work. (Unless, of course, they just don’t care.)

*** Update, 9:17 a.m. ***

Maybe they do care, after all. Just not a whole lot.

The blurb has just been watered down (but still attributes huge losses to the resumed gambling on mortgage assets):

Merrill traders resumed gambling on mortgage assets late last year — racking up huge losses — after the deal with Bank of America was assured, the NYT reports.