What a surprise:

Yesterday we told you about how the conservative media sucked up to Mark Sanford’s office by calling stories about the governor’s disappearance overblown — even while the gov was still AWOL.

But it looks like it wasn’t just the acknowledged right-wingers who were denigrating the story to Sanford’s aides. The State has written up a few more of the emails, and look what they found:

ABC News White House reporter Jake Tapper e-mailed Sawyer twice on June 23, both to note coverage of competitor NBC.

With a subject line of “NBC spot was slimy,” Tapper e-mailed Sawyer a “Today” show transcript of Sanford coverage, calling it “insulting.” Later, Tapper forwarded Sawyer a Twitter post [this one -- TPMmuckraker] by “Meet The Press” host David Gregory.

Jeff Schneider, a vice president at ABC News, said Tapper was “carrying some water for producers who knew he had a relationship with the governor’s office.”