Slow news day?

What an absolute circus. First off is a terrible article by the Washington Post rehashing three year old news. The article claims, without directly saying it, that when Bush claimed that he had "found the weapons of mass destruction" in 2003, the report that these WMD's (the Iraqi "mobile weapons labs") had already been discredited. If you read the article through and through you'll see that the Post is not so foolish as to directly make that assertion. The article is a three year old non-story for the purposes of... well, you know.

Well, nobody told the poor fool on Good Morning America, Charles Gibson, to actually read a story before reporting on it. Gibson idiotically said:

They'd found a couple trailers that he said actually were the mobile biological laboratories that he said showed that they were indeed developing WMD, and The Washington Post has a story today that says the President knew at the time that was not true.

Oops! Not so much, Charles. The intelligence community still thought the trailers were weapons labs when the President made the statement he did. However, I wouldn't expect you to 1) read the Post story, 2) know anything about it anyway, or 3)have any desire to not try to make the President look like a liar.

Scott McClellan is noticeably ticked off (what, with the co-anchor of a national morning news show spreading false information about a three year old story on the air?):

"The reporting I saw this morning was simply reckless and it was irresponsible," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "The lead in The Washington Post left this impression for the reader that the president was saying something he knew at the time not to be true. That is absolutely false, and it is irresponsible."

Tell us something we don't know. Soon after the AP jumped on the story, and reported:

The Post did not say that Bush knew what he was saying was false. But ABC News did during a report on "Good Morning America," and McClellan demanded an apology and an on-air retraction. ABC News said later in a clarification on its Web site that Charles Gibson had erred. McClellan said he had received an apology.

That's right - that is how your American news media operates. Make a false statement on television, and get a web site "clarification" (that no one can find, by the way - if you can let me know...)

Of course, this shouldn't be that big of a surprise, considering the past gaffs of the AP, including but not limited to:

Bush Attempts Hard Sell on Iraq Progress
I covered this story here, but as you can tell the original story has been removed. I wonder why.... I'm still waiting on the "clarification."

My personal favorite: when the AP invented the crowd at a Bush rally "booing" at the news that Bill Clinton had successful heart surgery. The AP of course posted no correction (how can you admit that one of your reporters is making things up?) and quietly changed the story online.

The media is just terrible.