link to background on original, pre-cooked, NYT article...viewtopic.php?f=10&t=18560&p=360376#p360376" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
And the cover-up...
White House: New York Times report '100 percent wrong'
By MIKE ALLEN & ANDY BARR
Updated: 9/20/10 9:07 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0910/42412.html
Hmmm...The White House is pushing back hard against a New York Times report that the president's political team is considering a national ad campaign that would cast the GOP as taken over by tea party extremists.
The story is “100 percent inaccurate,” a White House official told POLITICO.
Times Washington bureau chief Dean Baquet counters that the "piece is accurate.”
But White House complaints have had some effect. Although The Times has not posted a correction or otherwise acknowledged making changes to the piece, it dialed back its claims over night, changing the headline and the lead sentence of the story to de-emphasize the notion that the White House is weighing an anti-GOP ad campaign.
The initial headline read, “Obama Advisers Weigh Ad Assault Against the GOP,” and the first sentence reported that “President Obama’s political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a national advertising campaign that would cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said.”
The Times subsequently changed the headline to: “Obama Aides Weigh Bid to Tie the GOP to the Tea Party.”
And the opening sentence now says that the White House is considering a “range of ideas, including national advertisements."
Richard W. Stevenson, the paper's deputy Washington bureau chief, said: "The sourcing on the story was solid. When [White House senior adviser] David Axelrod provided us an on-the-record statement late Sunday night disputing the story, we promptly inserted it into the piece in a prominent way. We often tweak the wording of stories and headlines between editions to reflect editing judgments and additional reporting, and that’s what happened in this case."
Those changes were not enough to satisfy the White House, according to sources.
“The Times is just flat-out, 100 percent wrong,” a White House official said. “The first time Obama’s advisers heard about a national ad campaign is when the story showed up on The Times’ website last night.”
...who to believe, who to believe?
David Axelrod...
...or NYT Washington Bureau Chief?
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and flies like a duck...
...it must be a weasel.
