Maybe you saw this article in the Times on Saturday in which Randall Stross (photo) asserted that according to “analysts,” AT&T actually has the best network, not the worst, and that according to one “expert,” the problems that iPhone users experience are caused by their crappy phones, not the network, but that AT&T is just “takes the blame, even for the iPhone’s faults,” as the headline says.

Oh man. Where to begin? First of all, I didn’t think it was possible, but the Times has sunk to a new low when it comes to being spoon-fed articles by flacks and corporate sources. It was bad enough when recently they were ignoring important aspects of a story. But now they’re just ignoring reality altogether and making up fairy tales. As John “Dicknose” Gruber points out, a primary source for the story is a consultant who counts AT&T as a client. The other guy ran his tests on phones other than iPhone. Ahem.

The bottom line? AT&T is trying to fight back against Verizon’s mocking ads. They tried suing, and so far they are getting their ass kicked in court. But this is what Ralph de la Vega’s comments were all about at that conference last week — they’re trying to bolster their image by blaming us. Meanwhile their flacks are working an underground strategy of trying to place friendly stories wherever they can, so that eventually, if enough pro-AT&T stories sprout up, people start to change their opinion. So they get some analysts to work up numbers that can be sliced and diced and spun in a certain way so that it appears AT&T’s network doesn’t actually suck. Then they go shopping the story, and the Times bites.

Of course all this really does is (a) make the Times look even more clueless and out of touch; and (b) piss off the fanboys even more.

Friday at noon Pacific time. Be there, and be heard!