Rancho Miller

The Associated Press, historically a great news service, tipped its hand Tuesday by letting through a story with wild-eyed inaccuracy, claiming in its lead that Republicans until now haven’t come up with any of their own health care proposals.

The story by Erica Werner says that

After months spent criticizing Democrats’ health overhaul plans, House Republicans have produced a draft proposal of their own. It’s much shorter and focuses on bringing down costs rather than extending coverage to nearly all Americans.

Actually, Republicans produced a “draft proposal of their own” as far back as May. That’s when Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Rep. Devin Nunes of California and Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin offered their own version of health care reform, “Patients’ Choice Act.” It was introduced in both houses of Congress on May 20, 2009. Another bill was later offered by Rep. Tom Price of Georgia.

In his Sept. 8 address to a joint session of Congress, Barack Obama claimed that Republicans hadn’t offered any alternatives. He did this while Republicans held up copies of their health care bills. The news media couldn’t ignore this, at least not then. Apparently, they’re back to ignoring it, at least in whatever world Werner and Obama live in.

The AP inaccuracy was a result of one of the following:

• Werner really didn’t know that more than one GOP bill had been introduced, albeit ignored. In that case, what’s she doing writing about national policy debates?
• She knew, but wanted to mislead her readers. Hard to believe, coming from the great AP, but possible.
• The story was rewritten at the editing level and Werner’s name left on it.

At any rate, it’s hard to understand how such an inaccuracy survived the editing process. Everybody makes mistakes, but this is a doozy.

Not since the Nixon administration have we had a White House from which something like this could come:

“We’re doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible,” a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”

The source is talking, of course, about the White House’s declaration that Fox News is not a real news organization. (A friend of mine pointed out that this could be said of all TV news outlets, but I digress.)

My question is, why in the world should anyone in the White House be worried about how a news org is covering something? Where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government is responsible for how a news organization covers something?

This is something that is normally discussed in a classroom or in the media, or on the Net. In other words, by private citizens. But it’s totally inappropriate for the White House to take upon itself the role of judging the validity of a news organization. And they know it, too. Witness this give-and-take between ABC’s Jake Tapper and the White House’s Robert Gibbs.

What’s next? Movie recommendations? CD suggestions?

This is another example of Barack Obama’s unfitness to govern.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele dissed Rush Limbaugh on a CNN program, and then offered this explanation later:

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. “It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.”

“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.”

Say what? The words you said “weren’t what I was thinking”? How does that happen?

Steele does not have a backbone of steel. It’s closer to jelly. He comes across as trying to please the mainstream media as well as Obama backers instead of standing up for what the Republican Party used to stand for. It’s not a pretty sight.

Here is a perfect example of what C. John Sommerville writes about in “How the News Makes Us Dumb.”

On my Yahoo home page, the Associated Press has the headline:

Bernanke: Recession may end in ‘09; stocks climb

The Reuters headline is:

Bernanke fears recession may extend to 2010

Can’t ABC “chief Washington correspondent” and chief network incontinent puppy George Stephanopoulos, a former aide to Bill Clinton, even try to fake objectivity? Media Research Center published a transcript of his comments on Wednesday’s “Good Morning America” about Obama’s problems with nominees:

… the good news is, even though the President was forced to apologize so many times yesterday, is that these nominees now are gone. They’ve chosen to withdraw. So, the President can move on. This was running the possibility of really hurting his reformist image. He can move on from that.

The “good news,” without any qualifications? “So the President can move on”?

All Puppyopoulos is missing are a couple pompons and a cheerleader’s skirt.

White House Press Corps

Stephanopoulos Cried On Inauguration Day – mediabistro.com: FishbowlDC

This media puppy didn’t wet, he whimpered.

Just as annoying, albeit easier to clean.

As a former reporter, I’m embarrassed at how the national news media have been wetting themselves over Barack Obama’s inauguration.

And people wonder why newspapers have lost readership:

After three and a half  hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post.

Around 100 people–Post reporters perhaps?–awaited PEOTUS’s arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.

From politico.com.