Pre-emptive Straw-Man Astroturfing?

The L.A. Times did something amusing today—it printed three of the three dozen letters it received reacting to the vice presidential debate before the first question had been asked. Included among them was one with the subject line "John Edward was amazeing!", that made reference to "ol' Halliburton Dickie" … and which the LAT discovered was actually sent by a registered Republican, "just to see if we were checking."