The Associated Press continues to badmouth President Obama. This time, Ron Fournier’s increasingly-partisan rag damns Obama with the faintest of praise. In discussing Obama’s taking responsibility for the public distraction regarding Tom Daschle’s tax issues, the AP’s Charles Babington manages to call Obama "arrogant" before the end of his second sentence:
WASHINGTON – Two weeks into his presidency, Barack Obama proved that even a clearly gifted politician cannot escape the gravitational pull of Washington forces that have humbled many of his predecessors.
The new president, seen by some as arrogant, was anything but on Tuesday.
"I screwed up," Obama said repeatedly during a series of TV interviews. "I take responsibility for this mistake."
Woah there, Chuck! How did that one slip by your editor?
Who exactly called Obama arrogant? Since you don’t cite anyone, it must be assumed that you, Chuck, personally are calling Obama arrogant. But this is no opinion piece - this garbage is being passed around as a legitimate news story.
The "arrogant" quote did not go unnoticed. Drudge is currently teasing the quote on the top of its front page:
Shortly after the story was published, Media Matters addressed the Babington quote in a piece appropriately titled "Some say" the AP is a joke.
Those who have followed the AP’s assault on the Democratic Party will not be surprised by its latest display of journalistic malpractice.
MoveOn asked its members in August to send a letter to the national AP following its publication of "a story about Barack Obama’s vice presidential pick that sounded more like right-wing FOX than an unbiased news organization.
On June 29, the Politico’s Michael Calderone reported that Fournier was offered an opportunity to serve in a "senior advisory role" in Sen. John McCain’s communication department by the candidate’s closest advisers in October 2006.
Two weeks later, Talking Points Memo unearthed a rather telling 2004 email exchange between Fournier and Karl Rove, in which the AP’s D.C. Bureau Chief told Rove to "Keep up the fight."
Now, just two weeks after Obama’s inauguration, Ron Fournier’s AP has signaled that it fully intends to keep up the fight.
-- Cross-posted at The New Argument