When the Daily Kos broke the story that the Clinton campaign had made Barack Obama's face several shades darker in its "who would you trust when the red phone rings at 3 A.M." commercial, all of the mainstream media ignored the story—except for the New York Post.

If you compare Obama's skin tone in the commercial (as it appears here to a clip from the debate from which this sound bite is taken, it looks just like the notorious Time magazine cover which blackened O.J. Simpson's face. Clinton spokeman Jay Carson told the Post that the idea that Obama's skin was deliberately darkened was "totally bogus." "Coloration in every single screen shot looks different," said Carson.

However, Post reporter Bill Sanderson pointed out that Carson had previously told Fox News that Obama's face "was darkened as part of a 'saturation-desaturation' process commonly used in TV commercial production. Saturation refers to the amount of color in a picture, and it can be adjusted with common photo- or video-editing software."

Carson told the Daily Kos that he had spoken with the campaign's chief ad maker, Mandy Grunwald, "who said emphatically the ad on Daily Kos 'was not their ad.' "We don't know what is up there, but it is not our ad," Carson said.

Then the Daily Kos pointed out that the ad it had posted was identical to the version here on HillaryClinton.com.

At America Blog, John Aravosis also provided a particularly convincing comparison between the Clinton image of Obama and three clips from debate from which it was taken. This means that the Clinton campaign has so far lied at least twice about this very old-fashioned dirty trick.

Reporters at the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times told me Thursday that they were now looking into this. The political editor of the Washington Post and its chief political reporter did not respond to phone messages and voice mails requesting comment.