Did Rutten attribute a fictitious quote to Obama book?

Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogs at the magazine's site that a quote used by LAT columnist Tim Rutten has an unusual origin. It not only doesn't appear in "O," the novel said to be a fictional take on the Obama presidency — as Rutten wrote — but it appears to come from a humor piece posted on the Guardian website. Says Goldberg:

A few days later, on February 2nd, [Rutten] followed-up his review with a condemnation of Simon and Schuster, and of Mark Salter. Rutten wrote that Simon and Schuster should be "ashamed" for publishing O, in part because its presumed author, Salter, had a "demonstrated history of antagonism for Obama and a carload of political scores to settle." Rutten cites as evidence of Salter's bias against Obama the book's description of Obama's 2008 opponent (unnamed in the book, but obvious to anyone alive in 2008 as John McCain). Salter's authorship, Rutten writes that "'O' reflects admiringly on (Obama's) first opponent's willingness "always [to] put his country first" or one in which he "wished he had his former opponent's courage, valor, integrity."

I didn't remember this passage from the book, and I would have, because I was reading with Salter in the forefront of my mind. In fact, given that O seems to have been written by a McCain operative, its lack of obvious pro-Republican bias is noticeable. I went through the book, looking for these lines, but couldn't find it. I called a Simon and Schuster spokesman to ask if this passage was in the book, and was told no. I asked Rutten a week ago where he found this passage; he said he would check and get back to me, but he thought it was from the galleys sent to reviewers. The only problem with that is that Simon and Schuster didn't send out galleys. And then I Googled the words themselves: "always put his country first" and "wished he had his former opponent's courage, valor, integrity."

It turns out that these words appear in a humor piece written by Oliver Burkeman and published on the Guardian's website on January 30th, a few days before Rutten's second piece appeared.

Goldberg adds that he has tried to follow up with Rutten, without success: "Maybe there is a sound explanation for this strange set of circumstances, and I'll report back if there is."