It is a widely accepted convention, both in journalism and in blogging, that a story’s lede serves as an introduction to the story. In fact, this convention represents an implicit contract between writer and reader. A lede will typically contain a statement calculated to pique the reader’s interest. As a reader, when I read on, I have a right to expect that the story will deliver on its teaser-trailer, that it will actually be about what the lede promised.

Neither Amanda Terkel — formerly at ThinkProgress and now with the Huffington Post — nor the editors of the Huffington Post (I make my usual generous assumption that they do actually have editors who discharge a conventional oversight role over content) seem to subscribe to this promises-will-be-kept convention for the lede.

These are the first two paragraphs of a post she published on Saturday:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) attempted to convince pastors that economic issues are moral issues at the Greater Freedom Rally at a church in Spartanburg, South Carolina yesterday, imploring them to help conservatives retake Congress in November.

In addition to reiterating anti-choice talking points on abortion and backing “traditional marriage,” according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, the senator went further and “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.”

Attempted “to convince pastors that economic issues are moral issues” is downright intriguing. “Really?”, I thought to myself, “What specific lunacy did DeMint manage to come out with now?”

But the rest of the post only talks about DeMint’s latest anti-gay broadside. Not one single reference to the “economic issues are moral issues” notion. It’s almost as if, after writing that first paragraph, Terkel completely forgot what she had written. Even though “economic issues are moral issues” is underlined, as it were, by that link.

For the record, DeMint was speaking at an event “sponsored by CEO Round Table of South Carolina, a conservative group promoting the idea that economic and social issues are equally important”, and this is what he said:

“It’s a moral issue,” DeMint said of the federal debt. “It really is a religious issue, and this is what we’re trying to tell pastors all over the country.”

(Incidentally, if you happen to click on that last link, be forewarned that The Daily Caller site follows what I regard as an extremely ugly convention. Red text denotes a link. But those words that are double-underlined and green? They point to ads. Of all the dirty tricks…)