Worm Turning

The AP reports that John McCain says things that aren't true. Recall that the ap bureau chief Ron Fournier seriously considered working for the McCain campaign before returning to the AP.

On the web, I found two links to this article each noting that the AP had mildly noted that McCain said something that wasn't true. I thought there might be two such articles. The article is very brief and basically consists of noting that McCain said something which is totally false and that his campaign's ads have been refuted by fact checkers.

To me the key evidence that the AP is calling McCain for real is their version of his rebuttal (which must be edited ... well no this is McCain and he talks that way).

""They're not lies," McCain said."

That seems to me to be along the lines of someone else who ran much more substantive and honest campaigns and said "I am not a crook." If McCain can't manage anything better than the simple assertion, he is in some trouble. If the AP chose to edit his reply down to a simple assertion, he is in deep trouble.

Look I have this sick feeling that it's happening again just like many people do. I also assume that MSM journalists have the same feeling and don't like it. They know what happened in 2000 and 2004 (and 2003 and well again and again). They can't like it. I think that they can destroy McCain just by reporting the truth, and I think that many of them are very very angry with him.

update: here's another one from AP which makes it very clear that McCain says many things which just aren't true.

Here's yet another one from AP.

Charles Babbington doesn't quote anyone not associated with the McCain campaign who denies that they lie a lot. He reports only the bare claim that they don't from the campaign "McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds defended the campaign's statements. "We include factual backup in every one of our TV spots," he said Thursday." Finally he closes with a former McCain aid admitting that McCain is lying and saying he had to because otherwise he wouldn't win.

The ballance on Obama is far down in the article. It is very mild as Obama is very honest. There was the mistake about whether there are more African American men in prison or in college (probably an honest mistake) and the miss use of "worked his way" though college. Then, there is the absolutely feeble effort to claim that Obama took McCain's maybe a hundred line out of context which shows how it's done. The quoted words are "100 years," that is, no evidence is presented that Obama mischaracterized McCain's statement (because he didn't). Now the ballance is clearly required by the rules somehow, and the extreme brevity, positioning and, well, liberal bias of the facts, makes it harmless this time.

I think a decision has been made at AP to not sacrifice their credibility for John McCain.