The AP’s Sins of Omission and Commission on Bailey’s “Tell-All” Book on Governor Palin

by Whitney Pitcher

A chapter in one of my graduate school textbooks opened with a quote from Aaron Levenstein that says, “[s]tatistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital. ” Research involving statistics and journalism are supposed to be similar. Both are supposed to collect the data and report objectively on those data. Neither are supposed to conceal facts or results that run counter to their hypotheses or their own personal opinions. However, it seems that Associated Press reporter Becky Bohrer has neglected the journalistic tenet of objectivity in her piece on Frank Bailey’s “tell all” book about Governor Palin. Her piece is rife with omissions. This is nothing new for Bohrer. As Stacy wrote earlier this month, Boehrer showed glaring omissions in an AP story about the most recent frivolous suit against Governor Palin by serial lawsuit filer, Chip Thoma. In this most recent piece, Bohrer is guilty of both omission and commission.

The first glaring omission from Bohrer in this piece is in that she does not even once mention Frank Bailey’s ethical lapses. One of the frivolous ethics complaints filed against Governor Palin and her staff exonerated her, but required Bailey to take ethics training. Comments made by SarahPAC staff corroborate with this:

“Frank Bailey was the only member of the Palin administration to be found to have acted unethically – twice,” Crawford said. “He is currently under investigation again by the state attorney general. Then, as the administrator of certain email accounts, he acted unethically by appropriating account information he was entrusted to protect.”

This would seem a pertinent detail, but is omitted by Bohrer. This omission allows readers unfamiliar with Bailey’s unethical behavior to assume that because Bailey once worked for the Governor, he may seem a credible source. His ethical lapse tells a different story, however.

Additionally,while Bohrer does discuss the attorney general’s investigation of Bailey’s use of emails, she is not entirely forthcoming:

The Alaska attorney general’s office has said it’s investigating Bailey’s use of the emails. Executive ethics laws bar former public officials from using information acquired during their work for personal gain if the information hasn’t been publicly disseminated.

This is not an investigatory effort started by the attorney general’s office on their own accord. This is effort is due to the filing of a complaint by serial ethics complaint filer, Andree McLeod. McLeod is no friend of Governor Palin and, in fact, is responsible for many of the frivolous ethics complaints filed against Palin in the last few years, yet Bailey’s use of emails against Governor Palin for his own gain have spawned complaint from McLeod. If another person who seems to have an agenda against Governor Palin is even questioning the ethics of Bailey in writing this book. would that not give people pause with regards to Bailey’s credibility? Would not the complete facts behind the attorney general’s investigation be pertinent to the story?

Thirdly, Bohrer neglects to identify Bailey’s co-authors in his book. She writes:

In February, the book project also made headlines when a draft manuscript was leaked. An attorney for Bailey and his co-writers accused author Joe McGinniss, who has his own Palin book coming out this year. McGinniss’ attorney acknowledged McGinniss selectively shared the manuscript, but said the manuscript included no request for confidentiality.

Who might those unnamed co-authors be? None other than Jeanne Devon and Ken Morris–bloggers from the anti-Palin blog Mudflats. Even the biased Politico was honest enough to report the names of the co-authors. Again, does not the mention of co-authors further reveal the potential intentions and credibility of Bailey’s book? Bohrer quotes Bailey as saying that he has nothing against Governor Palin, but wouldn’t his selection of such individuals as co-authors tell a different story? However, Boehrer does not bother her readers with such details.

In addition to these glaring omissions, Bohrer tops off her piece by building a strawman argument regarding Bailey’s suggestion of unethical behavior by Governor Palin and the Republican Governors Association in the production of an ad. Boehrer writes:

At that time, there was a one-year statute of limitations on complaints, and the Alaska Public Offices Commission did not receive any complaints related to Palin and the association during that period. However, the RGA was fined – unrelated to Palin – for late reporting, according to the commission’s executive director, Paul Dauphinais.

Bohrer is right to say that no complaints were filed regarding the RGA and Governor Palin. Ian has written about this false claim already. However, why would Boehrer mention a missed deadline by the RGA unrelated to Governor Palin unless she was trying to implicate Governor Palin in some kind of wrongdoing? It is a false argument with no reason for inclusion except to misrepresent Governor Palin.

Bohrer’s piece shows several sins of omission. What the media choose to report is important, but what they omit is equally vital. Journalists’ sins of commissions and omissions in attempts to reveal a “scathing” story about Governor Palin only leave their bias exposed.

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The Strategy of the Media’s Bias

By Stacy Drake

The Associated Press and Politico found it necessary to report Bristol Palin’s honest wages to the broad public, via their respective front page. Whether their reporting was honest is another matter. It’s hard to tell considering that Rachel D’Oro (a name longtime C4P readers are familiar with), author of the first MSM piece, used the Trig Truther freaks at “Palingates” as a source. Using terms like “rakes it in” and getting a “payout,” these so-called “news” articles are clearly designed to sell a narrative that the media has been pushing about Bristol’s mother for a long time. There is nothing wrong with what Bristol did for the foundation she worked for. This “story” belongs nowhere near a front page, much less a news publication. It isn’t a story, it’s one young woman’s life. Running this piece, with vile conspiracy theorists as the source, is disgraceful behavior by an already close to illegitimate press.

Kelsey has more on Bristol here.

For many years I believed that the media had a blanket left-wing bias towards all Conservatives. It has been proven lately that there is more of a strategy at play, in regards to what the media reports and what they don’t, versus knee-jerk ideology. Take for instance this story that popped up a few days ago on Mother Jones:

Send a public records request seeking documents from his 12-year stint as Arkansas governor, as Mother Jones did recently, and an eyebrow-raising reply will come back: The records are unavailable, and the computer hard drives that once contained them were erased and physically destroyed by the Huckabee administration as the governor prepared to leave office and launch a presidential bid.

In 2007, during Huckabee’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, the issue of the eradicated hard drives surfaced briefly, but it was never fully examined, and key questions remain. Why had Huckabee gone to such great lengths to wipe out his own records? What ever happened to a backup collection that was provided to a Huckabee aide?

Huckabee is now considering another presidential run, and if he does enter the race, he would do so as a frontrunner. Which would make the case of the missing records all the more significant. These records would shed light on Huckabee’s governorship—and could provide insight into how a President Huckabee might run the country. Meanwhile, observers of Arkansas’ political scene—including one of Huckabee’s former GOP allies—say the episode is characteristic of a politician who was distrustful and secretive by nature.

A truly fascinating piece of information, especially for a “GOP front-runner,” is it not? Yet, there were no corresponding stories from AP and the only thing Politico had on it was a link buried on Ben Smith’s blog page. Why didn’t the media cover this? Doesn’t the public have a right to know what kind of behavior a potential candidate for the presidency took part in? Can you imagine if Governor Palin had done such a thing? I would bet every dollar I have ever made, and ever will make, that that story wouldn’t be buried in a link in the blog section. It would be Top Story news, in every media publication, and on every network.

Speaking of ‘what ifs’… What if Governor Palin had said this:

Bachmann, who’s flirting with a presidential run, was in the early-primary state of Iowa last week for the Rediscover God in America conference. Bachmann was born in Iowa, as she told the crowd. But she couldn’t leave it at just being an ordinary Iowan:

“I’m actually even more than just an Iowan,” she told her audience. “I’m a seventh-generation Iowan. Our family goes back to the 1850s, to the first pioneers that came to Iowa from Sognfjord, Norway.”

[…]

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t hold water, as researcher Chris Rodda ably points out at OpEdNews.

“I was watching her speech, and it was when she said that she was a seventh-generation Iowan that I knew something was wrong,” Rodda tells City Pages. “She’s in her fifties–there’s no way there could be seven generations between her and ancestors in the 1850s.”

So Rodda, who has a background in genealogical research, decided to do a little digging. Without too much trouble, she found that Bachmann is actually a fourth-generation American, not seventh, as she claimed. And that’s just the start.

Bachmann’s immigrant ancestors didn’t make a pilgrimage straight to the promised land of Iowa. From Quebec, they went to Wisconsin. That’s where the 1860 census found them. From there, they moved to the Dakota Territory.

Bachmann claims that her people “kept going, and they persevered” through floods and crippling winters. Well, kind of. After enduring those trials in the unforgiving Dakota Territory, they actually turned tail and retreated to the relative ease and safety of…Iowa.

“Okay,” Bachmann apologists may be saying at this point, “but history is hard and stuff! Maybe this was just an honest mistake.”

Not a chance, Rodda says.

“The only historical sources where she could have found some of the details of her story–like the 13-week ocean passage–also clearly show that her family went to Wisconsin, not Iowa,” Rodda says. “She couldn’t have known those things without knowing that the whole premise of her speech was a lie.”

You really can’t blame Bachmann for that though. Tuesday night on O’Reilly, she stated (4:32 mark) that she just reads whatever is on the teleprompter. She also indicated during the interview that she isn’t “afraid” of media attacks on her. After the mainstream media let a whole speech full of pandering distortions, slide on by without mere mention, I wouldn’t be afraid if I were Bachmann either. At least not at this point.

I think my Twitter buddy, Val, said it best today:

Liberals & Dems SHOULD fear @SarahPalinUSA in 2012, b/c she is thee ONLY candidate who will NOT have an October surprise!

Clearly that has a lot to do with the strategy being implemented by the media, in this pre-primary season.

Here we have three possible contenders for the GOP nomination in the upcoming presidential election of 2012. While all three claim the mantle of “Conservative,” one is treated very differently than the others. The reason for this is something I alluded to in my last blog post. The media and the left will promote and omit news that will help them in the long-run.

For Governor Palin, there will be no “October surprise.” Every little detail of her life is already out in the open. She would be the most intensely scrutinized candidate in our nation’s history. With the other two possible candidates, that is simply not the case.

Let’s face it, the other two Republicans here don’t have the same name recognition as Governor Palin. Huckabee has been largely unscrutinized for years, and most people outside the world of politics, don’t know who Michele Bachmann is. Governor Palin and her family are recognizable faces to rake over the coals.

With Governor Palin, the leftist media is forced to throw everything at her, as soon as they can. They do whatever they can think of to try and damage her in any way possible. With the others, they can afford to wait. This is after all, a strategy with the re-election of Obama in mind.

The left, and their partners in the press know what’s at stake. They don’t want to face Governor Palin in a general election, but the others look like walks in the park in comparison. They will save their bias and garbage reporting for a more strategically significant date. At the right time, they will unload all the information they held from the public on these candidates, given the opportunity. Let’s not give it to them.

The AP’s Blatantly Biased Haiti Coverage

By Stacy Drake

The Associated Press provided another example as to why the media cannot be trusted to cover anything Governor Palin does fairly. AP “reporter” Jonathan Katz, wrote an article about the governor’s recent trip to Haiti with Franklin Graham and Samaritan’s Purse. Katz opens his article by saying:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin began a tightly stage-managed visit to Haiti on Saturday in which she visited cholera clinics while avoiding crowds and the press.

“Stage-managed” eh? As to imply that this is just some sort of staged political photo-op, no doubt. It wasn’t, but regardless it is not Jonathan Katz’ job as an AP reporter to make that assumption in the first place.

He then goes on to say (emphasis mine):

Palin, who traveled in part by helicopter, provided access on her tour solely to the U.S. cable network Fox News.

Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse, refused to discuss Palin’s itinerary with other media and asked Haitian and American reporters to leave its compounds, citing a “security lockdown.”

It should be noted that Greta Van Susteren was asked by Franklin Graham (this is not the first time Greta has accompanied Graham on an overseas trip) to come to Haiti, it wasn’t Governor Palin who set that up.

Rebecca Mansour weighed in on Twitter to say:

Jonathan Katz of the Associated Press is a liar. He knows very well that Samaritan’s Purse was in charge of press in Haiti, not Gov. Palin.

Also

I told him myself repeatedly. He also knows very well that for security reasons, Samaritan’s Purse did not want to release their itinerary.

Katz and others in the media seem to be saying two different things in their articles about Governor Palin’s trip to Haiti. They imply it was a photo-op on one hand, then complain about a lack of access on the other. So which is it? I gather this is just more, ‘throw the kitchen sink‘ at Governor Palin to see what sticks.

Jonathan Katz then writes:

Associated Press television journalists saw Palin talking with foreign aid workers. She wore cargo pants, a T-shirt and designer sunglasses on her first trip outside the United States since speaking to investors in Hong Kong last year. That speech was also closed to the media.

Why is JonathanKatz reporting on Governor’s Palin’s wardrobe? The last time I checked, Katz wasn’t a fashion reporter. Who cares what Governor Palin wore on a humanitarian mission? Some might say that it was sexist of Katz to include that in his article. I’ll leave that up to readers to decide for themselves.

By the way, as Ian noted earlier, Governor Palin and Franklin Graham held a press conference on Sunday in Haiti from the Samaritan’s Purse camp. So, no this trip was not closed to the media. You can see a photo from that presser here.

Update: I was just reminded that the Hong Kong speech was not closed to the media. Katz was wrong about that as well. The Wall Street Journal covered the Hong Kong event here.

Sarah Palin To Corrupt Media: Really? Still Making Things Up?

If there is anything we have all learned over the last few years it’s the media in this nation is corrupt. They are liars and cannot be trusted. It’s one of the reasons that newspapers and magazines are going broke. It’s also why all of the other cables news stations are losing viewers en masse, to Fox News. CNN, the pioneer of cable news, and one of the most partisan networks, now has no shows that even track in the top 30 on cable. Fox, of course, owns the entire top 10 all day every day.

And don’t get me started with MSNBC! They are so in the tank for Obama, that getting real news from that outlet is impossible. MSNBC is owned by General Electric, and GE’s Chairman, Jeffrey Immelt sits on several boards of advisors to Barack Obama. GE has been a recipient of billions of taxpayer dollars to their financial divisions through TARP, and stands to make hundreds of billions through Obama’s mischief like the government take over of your health care and the cap and tax scheme surrounding the fictional “global warming” nonsense.

So trying to get anything but pure propaganda out of MSNBC is an exercise in total futility.

With that in mind, the highly suspect Associated Press, which has a level of bias only matched by MSNBC, has put no less than eleven “fact checkers” to work at “fact checking” Sarah Palin’s book that they somehow got a hold of.

Nothing wrong with giving an honest review of anyone’s book, or for that matter, “fact checking.” But eleven people, really?

We have the most corrupt President in the history of this nation. There are all sorts of questions surrounding this guy. All sorts of shady dealings.

Then there is the “health care” bill. This thing could employ and entire platoon’s worth of fact checkers to separate the lies Obama, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the democrat/communist controlled Congress are spouting vs the truth.

And what about the al Qaeda connected Ft Hood terrorist Hasan, who we now know was part of Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Transition Team! You think there might be a few questions that one should ask about all of this? Something like, oh…I don’t know, maybe like: “Mr Obama, why are you asking Congress to hold off investigating all of this? Or What are you hiding?

Nope, we gotta figure out if we can smear Sarah Palin by lying about what is in her book that isn’t even available to the general public yet! By the way, her new book is setting sales records, and buried in a Politico hit piece is the fact that HarperCollins, the publisher, has already had to order a second printing of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, An American Life.

The original printing was 1.5 million books. As we predicted early on, that wasn’t going to be nearly enough. Reportedly, pre-orders of the book at Amazon alone top 80.000. I’m sure the other sellers have similar numbers.

Anyhow, here’s my problem with the Associated Press. Not only are they neglecting real stories, that need real answers, not only are they dedicating a huge staff to one book, they are making stuff up and calling them facts!

This isn’t new for the AP. Unfortunately, the AP is the news service many, if not most newspapers use world wide. So do the cable news networks. So when AP lies, those lies go viral. And as we know, once something is on the internet, and in the search engines, lie or truth, it’s there forever.

With that said, Sarah released a little something of her own:

Really? Still Making Things Up?

Today at 4:43am

The book tour starts this week, and I look forward to it! I’m most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you,”Thanks for loving America.” I’ll give you a scoop here and tell you what’s on the book’s Dedication Page – it’s dedicated to you – Patriots – who love the U.S.A. as much as I do.

Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They’re now erroneously reporting on the book’s contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.

We’ll keep setting the record straight, and we’ll keep reminding some in the media that Americans are very tired of their non-objective reporting. A great, recent post that accomplishes this is a Conservatives4Palin post. It’s got some nice fact checking included. As always, they did a great job holding some of the media accountable for spreading more misinformation and for making things up. You can read it here. Enjoy!

And I can’t wait to see you! God bless the fight for freedom! Keep up the great work, Patriots who love this country.

– Sarah Palin

Sarah references a great piece by our friends over at Conservatives 4 Palin. You should read the entire thing because it goes into a lot of details, But here are just a few tasty bits:

On the Exxon Valdez Decision

AP “FACT”: “That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs’ lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was ‘extremely disappointed.’ She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. ‘It’s tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision,’ she said, noting many had died ‘while waiting for justice.’”

THE TRUTH: Governor Palin writes in her book: “As governor I directed our attorney general to file an amicus brief on behalf of plaintiffs in the case, and, thanks to Alaska’s able attorneys arguing in front of the highest court in our land, in 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the people. Finally, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.”

That is correct. Alaskans were able to recover some of their losses. However, it was also a tragedy of delayed justice. Alaskans had waited for nearly 20 years, and the Court reduced the amount of punitive damages for the victims.

Governor Palin voiced her support for the $2.5 billion in punitive damages in a press conference with the victims of the Exxon Valdez spill the day before oral arguments were heard. Naturally, she was disappointed that the Court reduced the amount to $500 million – which was especially painful coming as it did after many years of litigation in which some of the victims passed away without ever receiving justice. Even after the Court gutted the punitive damages award, Exxon argued that they shouldn’t have to pay interest on it.

However, it is a matter of record that the Supreme Court did, in fact, rule “in favor of the people.” The “disappointment” was in the reduction of the award and in the delay in justice.

Governor Palin’s immediate reaction to the decision expressed this frustration and disappointment. She said: “I am extremely disappointed with today’s decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. While the decision brings some degree of closure to Alaskans suffering from 19 years of litigation and delay, the Court gutted the jury’s decision on punitive damages. It is tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision. My heart goes out to those affected, especially the families of the thousands of Alaskans who passed away while waiting for justice.”

On Alaska’s Earmarks

AP “FACT”: “Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington.”

THE TRUTH: There is no question that as a very young state Alaska requires more help with infrastructure funding to catch up with the rest of the Lower 48. However, Governor Palin was not governor in 2005. As governor, she reduced Alaska’s earmark requests by nearly 85%.

On Governor Palin’s Frugality in Her Personal Expenses While in Office

AP “FACTS”: “Although travel records indicate [Governor Palin] usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children’s travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.”

THE TRUTH: The AP proves Governor Palin’s point by noting that she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels.”

The First Family’s travel was processed by the Administrative Services Department, whose director served under the previous governor. Governor Palin followed the same protocol that past governors had followed. The one obvious difference, however, is that Governor Palin and her family spent less than her two predecessors. In fact, she spent over $913,000 less on personal expenses in her first two years than former Governor Frank Murkowski did his last two years.

“Amending” the reports was not done to hide anything. It was standard practice for Governor Palin’s security personnel to submit the initial trip requests with the basic details of the trip to the Administrative Services Department. Later, the rest of the trip details would be added by the Governor’s personal staff.

And, by the way, perhaps someone could tell us how to find a cheap and safe hotel in New York City. And does anyone think she took a 9 hour flight to the east coast and didn’t do any other business. Riiight. Maybe we can ask Andree McLeod for the Governor’s calendar for that day, seeing as how Andree wasted hundreds of hours of work time of state personnel for her FOIA requests of the Governor’s emails, calendars, and, ah… we don’t know… Piper’s finger paintings.

The simple fact is that Governor Palin and her family spent significantly less than the prior two administrations despite having a much larger family. That is a fact. Clearly frugality was important to her.

On Governor Palin’s Interview with Vogue

AP “FACT”: “Says she tried to talk about national security and energy independence in her interview with Vogue magazine but the interviewer wanted her to pivot from hydropower to high fashion.

THE FACTS are somewhat in dispute. Vogue contributing editor Rebecca Johnson said Palin did not go on about hydropower. ‘She just kept talking about drilling for oil.’”

THE TRUTH: Governor Palin wanted to talk about resource development. The Vogue contributing editor confirms this. Hydropower is one of many alternative sources of energy used in Alaska. “…hydropower to high fashion” is used as a turn of phrase. Are they really this obtuse?

On Governor Palin’s “Ambitions”

AP “FACT”: “Few politicians own up to wanting high office for the power and prestige of it, and in this respect, Palin fits the conventional mold. But ‘Going Rogue’ has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto, the requisite autobiography of the future candidate.”

THE TRUTH: We didn’t realize writing a book was a declaration of anything other than the desire to tell one’s story.

Oh yeah, and one more thing…

We got a tip from our very own reliable anonymous source. Apparently the McCain campaign racked up legal costs in Alaska and said repeatedly it would pay for them. When the bill was discussed and submitted, according to the campaign’s wishes, it was turned down after the election and officials said the campaign would have paid if the campaign had won. Among the dollars – nearly $50,000 for vetting. Charming. Again, we ask you folks to consider this: When has the McCain staffers ever behaved honorably or honestly to this woman? Never.

Mark Steyn, with his sharp wit, weighed in on this stupidity by the AP as only he can:

Rogue’s Eleven

If you wonder why American newspapering is dying, consider this sign-off:

AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.

Wow. That’s ten “AP writers” plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That’s 11 writers for a 695-word report. What on? Obamacare? The Iranian nuke program? The upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

No, the Associated Press assigned 11 writers to “fact-check” Sarah Palin’s new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That’s 1.8333333 writers for each error. What earth-shattering misstatements did they uncover for this impressive investment? Stand well back:

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

THE FACTS: Although she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard)…

That looks like AP paid 1.8333333 fact-checkers to agree with Mrs Palin: She says she didn’t “often” go for “high-end” hotels; they say she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels”. That’s gonna make one must-see edition of “Point/Counterpoint”.

Or is AP arguing “four nights” counts as “often”? Is that the point? AP assigned 11 reporters to demonstrate that four is a large number?

Over at Powerline, John Hinderaker and his vast team of researchers (17 Minneapolis-area Somali jihadists, 29 Acorn-accredited child-sex slaves, and 43 unemployed Columbia School of Journalism graduates) fact-check AP’s fact-checkers.

Coming next:

PALIN: How many AP fact-checkers does it take to change a lightbulb?

FACT: Palin has gone seriously “rogue” in her facts here. AP fact-checkers are prevented per union regulations from changing lightbulbs.

AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this joke. We’ll be here all week.

You know, the AP and the rest of the dishonest media, in the long run, are doing more to help Sarah Palin than they will ever understand. Recent polls show that Americans trust the media about the same as they trust lawyers and used car salesmen. People know they are being lied to. And now that more folks have access to the internet, and can do the own fact checking, the jig is up!

The more the media spreads lies about Sarah Palin, the more people world wide start looking into her actual record, her actual accomplishments, and her actual views. As this happens, her base of supports grow exponentially, just as the consumer’s trust of the old media collapses.

The left wing forgets that people can actually think for themselves and are not mind numbed robots.

By the way, our cover photo is an “improvement” of a cover that Newsweek Magazine is running this week, along with an accompanying hit piece, using a photo that was part of an issue of Runners World Magazine that contained an excellent interview with Sarah, more on Newsweak to come!

H/T Serr8D for the artwork.