Oh, man. You won't be surprised to hear that Rupert Murdoch's New York Post is willing to stoop to extraordinary depths of dishonesty to smear Dems, but this one is quite remarkable.
Check out the rewrite that The Post has done on an AP story it ran today. The Post's version is far, far, far worse -- almost comically so, in fact -- for Harry Reid and the Dems than the AP story was in its original form.
Here's the headline and lede of the original AP story (there were many versions of it throughout the day looking basically like this):
Democrats Challenge Bush on Iraq Bill
By DAVID ESPO - A historic veto showdown assured, Democratic leaders agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.
'No more will Congress turn a blind eye to the Bush administration's incompetence and dishonesty,' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a speech in which he accused the president of living in a state of denial about events in Iraq more than four years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Bush, confident of enough votes to sustain his veto, was unambiguous in his response. 'I will strongly reject an artificial timetable (for) withdrawal and/or Washington politicians trying to tell those who wear the uniform how to do their job,' he told reporters in the Oval Office as he met with his top Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus.
Taken together, the day's events marked the quickening of a confrontation that has been building since Democrats took control of Congress in January and promised to change policy in a war has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops.
The New York Post, however, "edited" the story and ran a version beginning like this in their pages:
'WHITE FLAG' HARRY FUROR
WHITE HOUSE: PULLOUT PLAN A DEATH SENTENCE
By DAVID ESPO, AP
April 24, 2007 -- WASHINGTON - The White House warned yesterday that Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid's new legislation requiring the first U.S. troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 is a "death sentence" for millions of freedom-loving Iraqis.
The stinging comments from President Bush's spokeswoman came just days after Reid declared the war is already "lost" and as negotiators for the House and Senate nailed down the details of the war bill, which also set a goal of completing the pullout by April 2008.
Dana Perino, the president's spokeswoman, charged that Reid is in denial about the vicious nature of the enemy and about the U.S.-led plan to provide more security in Iraq.
Reid (Nev.) had earlier accused Bush of being in a "state of denial" about what's happening in Iraq four years after America went to war.
Perino fumed about Reid, "He's also in denial that a surrender date - he thinks it is a good idea. It is not a good idea. It is defeat.
"It is a death sentence for the millions of Iraqis who voted for a constitution, who voted for a government, who voted for a free and democratic society," she added.
As you can see, the Post completely rewrote the story to make it a hit on Dems -- than ran the piece with the imprimatur of the AP and Espo. While papers are free to edit AP copy, this complete makeover is nonetheless extraordinary -- and extraordinarily revealing. In the first version the "death sentence" remark from Perino was in the 13th paragraph. In the Post version, that was the lede and headline. Wow.
I just checked in with AP spokesperson Jack Stokes and asked him if anything put out by the AP yesterday looked anything like the Post story. His answer: "There is no version like that on AP wires."
So there you have it. I'm not sure it gets any clearer than that.
Update: It gets better. I just heard back from the author, David Espo. He told me: "I didn't write anything remotely like that. My name was on the story and I didn't write it anything like the way it was printed."
