AP Cites Monica Lewinsky in Bill Clinton Fact Check

Paul Krugman once joked that if President Bush said that the Earth was flat, the headlines of news articles would read, "Opinions Differ on Shape of the Earth." Our famed liberal media is terrified of the appearance of bias, which presents a problem, now that we've collectively decided that being "truth vigilantes" is part of reporters' job descriptions and fact-checks are a regular feature of political reporting.

What does one do when one side provides insufficient fodder for the truth mongers in the media? You could go the route of Factcheck.org, which described Bill Clinton's speech as a "fact-checker"s nightmare" because it required "lots of effort required to run down his many statistics and factual claims" while  "producing little for us to write about" as "with few exceptions, we found his stats checked out." That sorrow is palpable — they want to tell you that "pants on fire" describes something other than the feeling in voters' loins when Clinton speaks, but alas, they can't.

Or you can go the Associated Press route…

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Tags: Associated Press, Bill Clinton, Democratic National Convention, Media

Stephen Colbert on the Ames Iowa Straw Poll Results and the Associated Press's Candidate XXX

Will we ever know if "Rick Parry" with an "A" outscored the AP's Candidate "XXX" with three "X"s?

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30/10:30c.

Tags: Associated Press, Colbert Super PAC, Iowa, Iowa Straw Poll, Michele Bachmann, Rick Parry, Rick Perry, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, Tim Pawlenty, Video

Quote Unquote: End of the Iraq War

Tom Kent — Standards Editor for the Associated Press — in a memo to AP staff members…

"[C]ombat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months."

I beg to differ. Some months ago, U.S. soldiers were dying in a "war." Today, they're dying in a "security mission." Totally different situation.

Also, the thing that's happening in Afghanistan is an "ice cream party with assault riffles."

Tags: Associated Press, Iraq, Quote Unquote

Fox News Gets Coveted Front Row Seat Usually Reserved for News Organizations

Fox News just got three feet closer to commandeering control of the nation…

The White House Correspondents Association said Sunday that The Associated Press' reporter has been moved to the [White House Briefing Room] front-row center seat previously occupied by Helen Thomas. Fox's correspondent will take the AP's former front-row seat, and National Public Radio's correspondent will move up one row to Fox's old second-row seat.

I'm sure that, after all that unpleasantness with Helen Thomas, they wanted to make sure that any news organization in the front row would not allude to nor say anything racist.

So, Fox News seemed like an obvious choice.

Tags: Associated Press, Fox, Helen Thomas, NPR, Racism, White House

Sarah Palin Accuses AP of Unfairly Using Facts When Reporting on Her Book

It must be difficult being Sarah Palin, what with the entire America media working in collusion to smear her good name for no other reason than that she loves America or something.

Look at how shamelessly the Associated Press writes things about the things she wrote about in her upcoming book…

"Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released," she wrote on her Facebook page.

"They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We've heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, "fact checking" research!"

So, the Associated Press is lying about what's in the book? Wow! Can you believe that they'd put all of their credibility on the line by making up a bunch of lies about what's in Sarah Palin's book, when it comes out tomorrow and everyone in the world will be able to read it and see what liars they are?

It just doesn't make sense. But, you know, if Sarah Palin says that's what happened, we've pretty much got to assume that that's what happened. She's a pretty trustworthy source.

Tags: Associated Press, Books, Sarah Palin