The Oct. 21 story in The Deal breathlessly was saying the alliance was going to be dumped imminently and it was not until almost three weeks later that it fell apart.

You could have just said it was going badly, but you took it further.

That made the reporting wrong, even if it turned out the deal collapsed later. You don’t get points for guessing right what happens weeks later, especially since Google walking was not what was happening at all at the time of your report. They were still in talks with the Justice Department.

In addition, if you actually read the piece I wrote, I said exactly that:

“Wrote The Deal’s Cecile Kohrs: ‘A proposed joint venture between rival Internet companies Google Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. appears headed for the trash bin, just ahead of an expected U.S. Department of Justice challenge to the agreement, lawyers close to the deal said.’

Well, maybe it will die at some point. But, in the words of Juba in the last line of the greatest movie ever (”Gladiator,” of course!): Not yet.”

I then painted several scenarios–and made sure readers knew it was my analysis–about how it was going to go. One of those possibilities was that the Justice Department might have a hard time fighting such a case. I did not say they would allow it at all.

Then I wrote at the end:

“Thus, that is going to take more days of jabbering, probably into next week (although it all does have to be settled before the election, when the regulators pressing the case might be out of a job).

But not yet.”

And that is exactly what happened.

In other reports, I did talk about a VARIETY of scenarios, including that Justice backed down, but I did not predict they would. I also spun a scenario in which they all went to court.

But I did write in that piece here, that I thought walking was the oddson favorite. And I specifically NIXED the idea that Justice would back down:

“4. Justice waves the deal on through as is:

Prediction: Well, it could happen. Also Ralph Nader could get elected.”

Sorry, but it seems your comment is even more full of holes and you might try reading my pieces before mouthing off to defend an inaccurate story.

So next time, don’t bring a broken pencil to a MacBook Air fight.