AP: Preparing Country for Failing Obama Presidency, Excuses Abound

-By Warner Todd Huston

Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press seems to be setting the table for a certain amount of failure from Barack Obama by helping lower expectations among the people. Her latest AP report is as much as warning that, since he is facing “heady challenges,” we shouldn’t expect too much from him. In other words, before he has even really faced anything at all, Sidoti is making excuses for him almost in the mold of an affirmative action hire. It seems a perfect example of using the soft bigotry of low expectations to make preemptory excuses for Obama.

At the start, she seems to be downplaying any possibility that Obama will shine by noting how tough are the challenges he faces. Even the headline warns that “Obama faces heady challenges, and they’re growing.” But, the reality is few presidents in modern time faced a placid world upon taking office. Obama does not face any worse times than did Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan or any number of modern American presidents.

But, Sidoti’s warning seems more angled to lower expectations with the hope of preventing Obama’s fans from early finger pointing than to offer any serious discussion of what Obama faces come January.

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‘America’s Battered Image Among Muslims,’ Naturally All Bush’s Fault

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press is as much as blaming the victim for the attack again with theirs headlined “Obama says he wants to ‘reboot’ America’s battered image among Muslims.” In this report we get the AP saying that the reason the Muslim world is mad at us is because of George W. Bush. But not a word is mentioned about why Bush might have been in a position of interacting so heavily with the Muslim world in the first place. How soon the AP forgets a little thing we like to call 9/11.

Why is it that we have to apologize for our nation to Muslims is anyone’s guess. Was FDR groveling at the feet of Nazism, fascism and Shintoism in the middle of WWII?

Using Obama’s claim that he’ll use his full given name, Barack Hussein Obama, as he’s sworn into office, the AP trumpets how Obama will “repair America’s reputation worldwide” after that dastardly Bush leaves the Oval Office. AP’s thoughts on why Obama must undertake this grave effort, though, are interesting.

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AP’s Emotive Language For Gov. Rod Blagojevich

-By Warner Todd Huston

Evidence in abundance of AP’s new “style” of news coverage.

Not long ago, the Associated Press informed its writers that they should be more emotive in their writing. Instead of an old newsy just-the-facts style of reporting, then AP was looking to goose it up and add more opinion and emotion to its reporting of the “news.” Well, with the story of the arrest of corruption plagued Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his connection to Illinois Senator and president in waiting Barack Obama, the emotive words flow fast and furious. This incident serves as an interesting example of the APs new more emotive style.

For instance, for the AP Sharon Cohen gives us a piece headlined “Illinois governor’s arrest stuns politicos.” This piece tries to force upon Blago’s fellow Illinois politicians a sort of “shock” in response to Blago’s arrest. But, while some politicians and FBI officials expressed disappointment and a sort of faux shock, no one in Illinois or Chicago politics is really shocked that Blago is finally under arrest. It has been building for several years at this point and for most folks in Illinois at all aware of the situation, it was a matter of when Blago was going to get picked up by the feds, not if. There really isn’t much genuine shock and it is hyperbole to say there is. Truth be told, instead of real shock, it is more like weariness. (Even this AP piece featuring a series of quotes from Illinois politicians doesn’t reveal any of them being “shocked.”)

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AP Feels Sorry for Mexico Over Drop in ‘Money Sent Home’ By Returning Illegals

-By Warner Todd Huston

I suppose the Associated Press wants us all to feel sorry for Mexico. With so many illegals here either having trouble finding work or actually returning home, Mexico is finding that its citizens illegally in the US have fewer American dollars to send home. AP says the “situation is so serious” that the Mexican government is trying to create new programs to reinforce ties between illegals here and its citizens at home. Of course, no where in AP’s story does it seem to occur to anyone that Mexico clean itself up and offer opportunities there as opposed to trying to squeeze money from people here.

The whole story is reported as a legitimate economic issue instead of the thievery by illegals that it really is. The AP sternly informs us that as the “economic crisis worsens” Mexico finds that the money sent home is at “record lows.” And we are treated once again to the euphemism for this theft of American dollars that is doled out in every such story. The AP calls this sending of American money back to Mexico a “remittance revenue stream,” as if it is some sort of legitimate economic matter. It’s a great way to gussie up the word “theft,” isn’t it?

The truth is that the Mexican government is trying to undermine our nation yet the AP treats this as if it is just an average story.

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AP Finds Race Hustler to Say Obama Isn’t The Cure

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press is worried that Americans might accidentally imagine that the elevation of Barack Obama to the presidency could make people think that blacks in America really can get ahead. The AP is so worried that it sought out a race hustler to deny that blacks can make it here no matter what happened on November 4.

As the AP reports it, apparently young Kari Fulton “cringed” when Barack Obama won the past election. She “cringed” because she heard a white guy say that Obama’s election put a dent in the charge of racism in America. And why did she “cringe”? Why, it’s because “racism is still very much alive and well” she told the AP.

And how does young Kari know this? At 23 she never lived through Jim Crow. She doesn’t remember the days when there were few blacks on TV and blacks in music were segregated to separate genres, not mixing with white singers. She wasn’t around when black CEOs didn’t exist and no blacks roamed the halls of Congress or the White House without pushing a broom. So, how does this 23-year-old girl know that “racism is alive and well”? Because she is a black activist, that’s why.

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On Palin’s Celebrity, AP Reminds She’s A Failed Candidate… Over and Over and Over Again!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Governor Palin is in demand. Every newshound, every TV talking head, every newsertainer in the country is after her. She is being pursued for TV shows, book deals, movie roles, hounded by photographers and every hanger on in both Hollywood and the newsertainment industry. But the Associated Press wants to be sure you understand one thing: she is a FAILURE! That’s right, in discussing Palin’s current celebrity, the main concern AP has is to make sure you know she is a big ol’ loser. The AP is so intent to remind you she lost that it has to tell you she lost over and over again. You know, just in case you were unaware she and McCain didn’t win the election.

So, did you know Sarah Palin lost the election? Here, let the AP remind you (My bold throughout)…

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Stop the Presses! AP’s Important Story: Obama Had Corned Beef Sandwich for Lunch

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ya gotta hand it to them. The Associated Press knows how to cut out all the extraneous background noise and get right to the important issues of the day. Barack Obama will surely be in the center of the vortex of some of the most important decisions in the world during the next four years and even his preparations for taking office are vitally important as a marker to what he might do in office. There are wars and rumors of wars, disasters and relief efforts and historic decisions will soon be made. But no decision is so important, as the AP dutifully tells us, than the one of what the president elect had for lunch. The shocking, heartwarming and resolute decision the leader of the free world… no the leader of all mankind… made for his lunch was apparently a corned beef sandwich.

Darfur still swirls with genocide, Iran is still making plans to destroy Israel, China is on pace to build the largest most dangerous army on Earth, the European Union still angles to lay America low, but all that pales in comparison to the important report the AP could muster (no, not mustard). Yes, the AP brings us the most salient story of our day: “Obama grabs lunch at local deli, greets patrons.”

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Math is Heroic? Dumbing Down the English Language

-By Warner Todd Huston

Yahoo News featured an interesting short report issued by Agence France-Presse on November 20. In it we discover that a consortium of French, German and Hungarian mathematicians are claiming to have proven that Einstein’s famous equation, e=mc2, is correct. The report is all good except for one very small aspect. They call the effort of these mathematicians “heroic” in contradiction to the root meaning of the word. Mathematics isn’t “heroic” and it is a degradation of true heroics to say it is.

Unfortunately, while a small thing too casually used in the AFP report, it proves a sort of degradation of our language. Not only that, but it further devalues real heroism, making the word mean less with each garbled usage.

Here is how AFP used the word:

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Media and Academia, Historical Illiterates du Jour

-By Warner Todd Huston

To show how foolishly hyperbolic the Old Media and the ignorati in our universities are, the Associated Press issued a dire report that breathlessly informed us all that Barack Obama is facing a “nation in crisis” and it’s all “just like Lincoln and FDR.” The AP even gets an historically illiterate university professor to sonorously declare how Obama is “one step away” from Lincoln and FDR. But a review of our nation’s real history shows that the America Obama will inherit is in nowhere near the state of crisis that Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt had to deal with. But, in the end, this isn’t about real reporting or true historiography but about pumping Obama up and trying to shoehorn him in among what are considered by many our greatest presidents before he’s even taken office.

The absurd hyperbole and wild stretching of the historical record to give gravity to Obama’s reign is transparent for its effort to force readers into imagining that Obama should be given a mandate to do anything he wants. I’d suggest that the reason this foolish overestimate of our state of national “crisis” is being ladled out to an unsuspecting public is because the AP realizes that Obama did not get a mandate vote and the AP fears that Obama might face more resistance than it would like to his starkly socialist policy proscriptions. So, the AP is trying its best to break down those barriers beforehand.

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MSNBC/AP say Player Injury Palin’s Fault

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, that mean ol’ Sarah Palin ruined everything for the St. Louis Blues hockey team, darn it all. That’s right the media’s newest Cheney replacement must have been planning this monstrous attack on the Blues’ goalie for weeks. Her next trick: world domination. At least this seems to be how MSNBC and the Associated Press feel about it all.

What am I talking about? Well, Palin visited the Blues’ arena to see a game on October 24 and it seems that Blues goalie Manny Legace tripped on the carpet that the team laid on the ice so that Palin and her family could walk safely out to address the crowd. Because of that injury, the AP and MSNBC both decided that this accident was all Palin’s fault. Really.

Right on the MSNBC homepage is a link to the story in the sports section and on that homepage the story is headlined “Goalie’s injury linked to Palin’s puck drop.” (see screen shot below) It’s as if Palin’s “puck drop” caused the injury. Though, one easily gets the feeling that the situation is closer to an outbreak of PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome).

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AP Links Assault on Reporter to Appearance in Bush Movie… BDS Strikes Again

-By Warner Todd Huston

An Arkansas TV reporter that had a bit part in Oliver Stone’s movie “W” was found beaten unconscious in her Little Rock home on October 20 and in its report on the crime the Associated Press seemed to decide that she was beaten merely because she had appeared in the movie though this impression the AP seems to have is not supported by the police. One wonders why the AP decided to spend almost half its story focusing on her movie role when reporting this crime? Is the AP trying to say her connection with George W. Bush got her attacked? It sure seems like the AP is seized by another bout of Bush Derangement Syndrome with its unnecessary emphasis on this reporter’s film role.

The APs obsession with the victim’s movie role was odd, indeed. Even in its first few lines the AP ties KATV anchor Ann Pressly to her movie work saying in its first sentence that she “had a small part in the Bush biopic ‘W.'” The AP takes pains to point out that in the movie, Pressly “speaks favorably of President Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ event on an aircraft carrier shortly after the start of the Iraq war.” The report speaks about how she won the role in the film and then adds this odd sentence:

Spokeswoman Kate Hubin for the film company Lionsgate confirmed Pressly’s role but declined to comment further.

Why did we need to have Pressly’s role “confirmed”? Why would the AP imagine that Lionsgate films had anything useful to add to a report on this crime?

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AP Again Calls Palin A Racist

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press has once again called Governor Sarah Palin a racist. This time Rachel D’Oro for the AP bases her claim on the fact that Palin appointed minorities to her Alaska administration — but not enough of them to suit the AP — and because at an Alaska rally when she was running for governor one attendee once spoke to a black cameraman in an unkind manner. Yep, that’s a mountain of evidence the AP has there, isn’t it?

The AP also spoke to a few black ministers in Alaska and, shockingly, they announced that they felt she had no “sensitivity” to their political positions. Imagine that? A Republican that isn’t receptive to demands based on a race driven agenda? No one has ever heard of that before, right?

In fact, since there is no real direct proof that Palin is somehow a racist, the AP report relies on innuendo and the claims of her political enemies to constitute its “proof.”

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HORRORS! AP Says Bad Economy Makes Us Ugly!

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s getting close to Halloween, so I hope this story doesn’t scare you too much. But the Associated Press has discovered that this bad economy is making us ugly. That’s right, ugly. Because of this downturn people just cannot afford to go to their friendly neighborhood plastic surgeon for those nips and tucks any more. So it is the AP’s sad duty to inform us that “As economy sags, faces do too, cosmetic docs say.” It’s a horrible, horrible world that we now are cursed to live in if we can’t afford our Botox and tummy tucks! Now, they are serious with this so quit your laughing this instant.

The economy isn’t the only thing that’s sagging — so are faces, breasts and bellies as would-be cosmetic surgery patients increasingly opt against costly nips and tucks because of tough financial times.

You know, I was complaining to my Mommy yesterday that I didn’t want my liposuction and she told me to do it anyway because kids in China could barely afford an eyelift these days. I know I should be grateful for what I have, though. Some people DO have it worse, ya know?

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AP Attacks Palin for Not Being in Alaska During Campaign

-By Warner Todd Huston

With the newest angle to beat up Sarah Palin, the AP is suddenly alarmed that no one is “running Alaska” while Palin is out on the stump with John McCain, so much so that they’ve published a piece wondering if Alaska is about to sink into the icy grip of the Alaskan tundra, or something, because Palin isn’t there. One wonders if the AP is all upset that no one is in Congress representing Illinois or Delaware with Obama and Biden roaming the countryside instead of sitting in the Senate? One wonders if the AP has even noticed that Obama has spent less than 200 days in the Senate since he took his seat in that august body in 2005? Talk about rudderless! Talk about short-shrifting the representation of constituents!

The AP is all about the wringing of hands because Palin has been absent from the Alaska governor’s office for the last three weeks. I guess the AP isn’t aware that Alaska has a Lt. Governor? But, let’s face it, the AP doesn’t care about Alaska at all because this article is only a thinly disguised excuse to slam Palin for not running to the press to fawn over them and cater to their every need.

Most of this piece is centered on the way McCain and Palin are trying to control the Palin message, as opposed to any real worry that Alaska is running rudderless. In fact, this AP smear piece is a bait and switch, not really about what it seems to be about.

The AP even basically starts out with a lie:

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AP Says Shame on GOP for Showing Palin’s Kids at Convention?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently Ted Anthony of the Associated Press thinks it is somehow “contradictory” of the GOP to show VP candidate Governor Sarah Palin’s kids at the GOP convention on TV. He seems to imagine that, since the GOP objected to the media attempting to use the kids against Governor Palin, that the GOP shouldn’t be allowed to have the kids attend the convention to see their Mother accept her nomination.

Anthony’s “analysis” hit the nets on September 3, the day after Palin’s wonderful acceptance speech on night 3 of the proceedings. Naturally, the AP trolls our left leaning universities to find some “expert” to back up its claim that it is all wrong to show the proud faces of Palin’s children looking up at their Mother as she speaks to the convention.

“For two days, the chorus from Republicans on TV news and in the halls of the convention,” Anthony scoffs, “has been resounding: Back off and let the Palin family be. ‘That’s out of bounds,’ said Minnesota’s Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty. ‘There’s no need to be intrusive and pry into that.'”

After this, in accusatory tones, Anthony recounts the many times that Sarah Palin’s children appeared on TV during the convention. And then he goes for the supposed “expert” for his opinion…

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AP Next Going After Palin’s ‘Derided’ Religion

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press takes the attacks against Sarah Palin to the next level by saying that in her released bio Palin’s religion was “obscured.” The AP is suggesting that Palin’s ostensibly secret religion is really Pentecostalism which, they note, is a sect that is “derided by outsiders and Bible-believers alike.” So, the AP is saying here that the McCain campaign is trying to cover up Palin’s past because they must somehow know that her real religion is a cult or some wacko, fringe sect.

Sarah Palin often identifies herself simply as Christian… Yet John McCain’s running mate has deep roots in Pentecostalism, a spirit-filled Christian tradition that is one of the fastest growing in the world. It’s often derided by outsiders and Bible-believers alike.

But for all of the AP’s grave warnings about what it obviously considers wacky Pentecostalism, Palin and her hard working, middle class family have for the last 6 years belonged to the Wasilla Bible Church which is not a Pentecostal Church but describes itself as an independent evangelical church. So, even if she were raised in the Pentecostal Church — and even if we were to be alarmed at this — she left it behind 6 years ago. So, where is the “obscuring,” where is the secretive past?

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Forsaking Print? The Future of the Associated Press

-By Warner Todd Huston

More bad news for the newspaper industry. Anyone paying attention to the current state of financial distress in the print news industry will realize that saving money is the order of the day industry wide. Yet, not long ago the Associated Press announced that it was to raise its prices to the print news industry causing consternation everywhere. This new rate structure has caused quite a few newspapers to begin the process of dropping AP content giving pause to consider what the future of the AP might become?

Several papers have already announced that they are preparing to drop the AP, the latest of which appears to be the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The Minnesota paper has announced it will cease using AP content by 2010. The Star-Trib joins The Bakersfield Californian, and two papers from Washington State, The Yakima Herald-Republic and Wenatchee World. Also The Post Register of Idaho Falls informed the AP that they were going to drop their service in early August.

And according to a June 26 article in The Wall Street Journal, the eight largest papers in Ohio are banding together to create their own news service.

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AP Knows Racists Secretly Want Obama to Win in Nov.

-By Warner Todd Huston

Do you know who the Associated Press thinks is secretly hoping for a Barack Obama win? Why, it’s “racist groups,” dontcha know? See, as the AP reports it, a black man as president couldn’t be a more perfect example of how the dark race is takin’ over and ruining the white man’s world, right? At least, that is according to the AP’s favorite go-to racist guy, David Duke, anyway. And what better way for the AP to prove that only racists oppose Obama, eh?

AP decided to dredge up the aforementioned David Duke to let the country know that “the racists” are wringing their hands in a gleeful expectation that a president Barack will swell the ranks of the KKK and other racist groups. Sternly telling us that “They’re not exactly rooting for him, but prominent white supremacists anticipate a boost to their cause if Barack Obama becomes the first black president,” the AP lets the cat out of the bag for the hooded set.

Want proof? Well, the AP is happy to give it… such as it is.

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AP: ‘Gay Ex-Governor Owes Wife No Alimony’… Name That Party?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Many of you will remember New Jersey Governor James McGreevey who ended up having to admit he gave his gay lover an undeserved State job — even as the gay lover claimed sexual harassment — and that he was cheating on his wife and family with that very gay lover. Many will also remember that disgraced Governor James McGreevey was a Democrat. “Many” apparently doesn’t include the Associated Press because they are still publishing stories about James McGreevey leaving out that one little fact that he was a Democrat.

To the AP, McGreevey is merely the “Former Gov.” who has succeeded in winning a recent court case brought by his ex-wife who was seeking alimony. Oh, the AP gives us all sorts of information about our friend James McGreevey. The AP tells us that he was an acknowledged “gay American,” we find out he was “the nation’s first openly gay governor,” and that McGreevey is now oddly a “seminary student.”

But, not once does the AP let us know he was a Democrat.

Not once.

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AP Headline Asserts VP is ‘Unpopular Cheney’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the Associated Press is certainly living up to its new rules of being opinion editorialists instead of reporters if the following headline is any indication: “Obama links energy troubles to unpopular Cheney.” This was unleashed on the world by the AP on August 5. So, I ask you, does “unpopular Cheney” sound more like opinion than it does simple news reporting?

In fact, the Cheney comment was not even the crux of Obama’s comments, but a throw away line meant to give red meat to the far left. Obama did not center his energy discussion on Cheney. Yet here we have the AP deciding to make that the focal point of the discussion by making it the headline? Even more ridiculously, the AP twice reported that throw away line in the same 10 paragraph story. This seems to reveal that it is the AP, rather than Obama, that wanted to focus on Cheney the most here.

Certainly we can face facts that the liberal press has succeeded in pillorying Vice President Cheney since almost the minute he stepped into the VP Mansion at the United States Naval Observatory. It is, therefore, a fact that Cheney has a low approval rating. But it seems to me that the headline branding Cheney “unpopular” is somewhat unseemly and opinionated as opposed to newsworthy.

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AP: GOP Convention Protesters Create ‘Marketplace of Ideas’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Talk about a puff piece, this Associated Press short is a story with absolutely no substance. Not only that but after seeing the headline and then reading the story, one is hard pressed to believe they belong together. This Amy Forliti puffery is incongruously headlined “Protesters expected to transform the streets outside GOP convention into marketplace of ideas,” yet there isn’t any discussion at all of any such “marketplace” or about any real “ideas” in the story. In fact, the only “ideas” are ages old, stale and losing their grip among more Americans everyday.

Oh, Forliti talks about protests filled with prosaic anti-war sentiment, ages old oil protests, anarchists and 9/11 truthers, but there is no discussion of real “ideas” in this piece. Nor does the piece discuss exactly who is organizing these protests, people who are themselves filled with the dead ideas of another era — just for instance the United For Peace And Justice (UFPJ) is mostly a socialist organization and they are always a part of these coalitions of misfits.

After reporting that a retired 73-year-old doctor will parade about holding a styrofoam gravestone who will be on hand at the RNC convention in Minnesota and after talking about how a “philosophy professor” will agitate for 9/11 trutherism, the AP piece lets us know that these folks comprise a “marketplace of ideas.”

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Shameless AP Editorializing, Republicans Against ‘The Poor’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press injected an editorial comment into the news… again. A few days ago, the AP issued a piece headlined Senate Republicans block heating aid bill, in which the AP made it seem as if Republicans don’t care about “the poor” and are only interested in mere political partisanship. This report featured quotes showing how wonderful and caring the Democrats are but not a single quote from any Republican to explain their stance. It also clearly discounted the GOP position while positively spinning the Democratic position.

The story concerns the GOP’s blocking of a Senate Democrat bill to double the Federal aid to “the poor” to subsidize their heating and air-conditioning bills. First of all, I wasn’t aware that it was Constitutionally mandated that “the poor” get free air-conditioning, but that is another story. The editorializing comes in with the second paragraph.

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