If WaPo Wants To Fact Check Pols, They Should Start With Murtha
September 19, 2007 by Laura | Trackback URI
Hot Air currently has this pithy headline: WaPo takes a dump on Fred’s pride in American sacrifice. Evidently Fred Thompson said in a stump speech,
“You know, you look back over our history, and it doesn’t take you long to realize that our people have shed more blood for other people’s liberty than any other combination of nations in the history of the world.”
WaPo found it impossible to let that statement stand, and spent about 600 words debunking it, concluding,
Thompson’s jingoistic assertion cannot be supported by facts, barring some tortuous definition of the phrase “other people’s liberty.” We asked his presidential campaign for factual support for the claim, but it did not respond. We therefore award Thompson four Pinocchios.
Oooh, snap! They got him! Way to practice that old-school investigative journalism! The fact is, Thompson’s rhetoric was over the top and inaccurate. Fine. Call him on it. Sam Brownback and Mike Gravel have also received them, and this will be an interesting measure by which to judge WaPo’s political coverage - who gets Pinocchios, for which rhetorical offenses, and how many they receive.
But if they’re serious about fact-checking politicians, they need to get going on Senator John Murtha, who accused our troops of murdering Iraqis “in cold blood.” Murtha employed the leftist “military as psychopathic victims” meme, nearly as popular as the “military as children” meme with the “military as victimized poor children” variation. The problem is, there is increasing reason to believe he was wrong, and in any event, should have kept his mouth shut at least until the investigation was complete. Now that some Marines have been exonerated, he suddenly believes it’s better to wait and comment after the trial when presumably all the facts are in evidence:
JEFF GANNON: In May 2006, you said that Marines killed innocent Iraqis citizens in cold blood at Hatitha. A year later, some of them have been exonerated. At some point are you going to apologize to these men?
REP. MURTHA: The trial’s not over yet.
JEFF GANNON: You’ve spoken out before. You went on national television and called these men “cold blooded killers.”
REP. MURTHA: The trial’s not over yet.
Isn’t about time to hold Murtha as accountable for slander as Thompson, Brownback and Gravel have been for campaign rhetoric? How about it, WaPo?
I had forgotten all about that.
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