This post on this blog totally saved my bacon.  I”ve been screwing with verifying my blog with the Google Webmaster tools for longer than I”d like to admit, and had it working at one point, then lost it.  Now it’s logged for posterity.

To clarify the post: Login to the dashboard of your site, click appearance, and click edit, and select header.php.  I added the meta tag from google directly underneath the head profile… tag.  Google saw it, and is pleased, finally.