WaPo Exclusive: Pentagon Inspector General's Report States Conclusively That Bush Admin Official Cooked Pre-War Intelligence!!!
Oh, Minor Correction: It Was A Report From Anti-War Democrat Carl Levin Which "Concluded" That. Whoops, Our Bad.

Long headline, but for one of the most egregious "twisted intelligence" debacles of all time.

The correction, of course, does not quite capture the enormity of this error -- breathlessly labeling a partisan liberal Democrats' "conclusions" as if they were the indpendent, nonpartisan official conclusions of the Bush-run Pentagon. How could they really convey how massively they fucked up here? This is, in journalistic terms, simply catastrophic.

"Confirmation bias," they call it-- the press simply will run anti-Republican stories that ought to sound a little implausible or sketchy because, to them, they sound pretty darn reasonable. Such "facts" are "self-checking" -- they just prove themselves by how wonderfully they fit in with the liberal worldview.

Meanwhile, anything that shows the Democrats in a bad light is vetted, checked, confirmed, re-confirmed, and subject to a complete full-office rewrite to insure all appropriate mitigating "context" was included before ultimately being buried on page A37 beneath a short blurb on Icelandic geese migration.

Carl Levin Wouldn't Lie To You: Consider how astoundingly easily it was for Levin to get this false report on page one of the Washington Post. He just had to claim what he was reading was from the IG report. (Or be unclear about which report he was quoting.)

No need to see the actual document. Nope -- if Carl Levin tells you something, that itself is auto-confirming. Liberal Democrats don't lie to other liberal Democrats, and they never make errors. So really, who needs to see the actual document?

The standard "two sources" verification rule is apparently suspended if a liberal Democrat is your source.

Better Headline For the Washington Post:

So their front page story wasn't merely based upon a partisan document written by Carl Levin, misattributed to the Pentagon IG -- it was based on a 2004 partisan document written by Carl Levin.

I think this is where Dave from Garfield Ridge is supposed to step out from behind a wall and say, "It's old."

The first-to-market effect should be fun to watch-- the media just got a late Christmas present in a report confirming everything they believe (which is, of course, also everything Carl Levin believes).

One problem: None of it is true.

But they don't want to give back their Christmas present. Who would?

So it will be enjoyable to watch the media spin the actual report as "substantially" confirming Carl Levin's various charges even though, you know, it actually doesn't.

But they now have that idea in their little pointy immune-to-contrary-facts heads: Report proves Bush twisted intelligence. That idea is in there (as it always has been) and they'll be damned if stupid little facts get in the way of "The Truth."

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE WASHINGTON POST: DUKE LACROSSE PLAYERS FOUND GUILTY!!!!

Oh, wait -- they are "guilty" according to charges filed by DA Mike Nifong.

Sorry, minor mistake of attribution there. Could happen to anyone, really.

See, Mike Nifong was reading his indictment to us over the phone, and he sort of gave the impression that he was reading from the jury's verdict, and, see... well, who has time to check on these things.

It sounded pretty good when he was reading it to us.

Reporting is hard, man.

The Washington Post

Where Our Motto Has Always Been, "Oh well! That's why God gave pencils erasers!"

posted by Ace at 08:43 PM

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