To: info@ap.org

Today, you printed a lie which is rapidly spreading around the country, if not the world. That lie is insulting to me, as a supporter of President Bush, the people of West Allis, Wisconsin and all Americans who plan to vote for Bush. In an unattributed wire story, your reporter stated:

"President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday wished Bill Clinton (news - web sites) "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery." "He's is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally. Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them."

That is patent nonsense. Was your reporter even at the event? You can listen to an audio clip of Bush's comments and the audience's reaction here. That reporter simply fabricated the supposed boos and Bush's supposed failure to stop them. While I did not like President Clinton's policies or his behavior in office, your story is insulting to the people at that rally, and to me and everyone who supports Bush because it deliberately attempts to falsely portray the Bush's supporters as callous, unkind, uncivil and uncaring.

Your subsequent revision of the story is completely insufficient. Your revised copy reads:

President Bush (news - web sites) on Friday offered former President Bill Clinton (news - web sites), who faces heart bypass surgery, "best wishes for a swift and speedy recovery."

"He is in our thoughts and prayers," Bush said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin.

The crowd reacted with applause and with some "ooohs," apparently surprised by the news that Clinton was ill.

There are no "ooohs" in that audio clip, either. Your reporter, having been caught in his original fabrication, is apparently attempting to lay the groundwork for a later claim that he mistook the "ooohs" for "boos".

This story goes well beyond slanting a story in favor of one side of an issue and crosses into Jayson Blair and David Glass territory. Even so, had the original story not been repeated in many different places (Salon, WSTM TV, WRIC TV, KWWL TV, KPLC TV, and numerous other news outlets throughout the country, a more complete list of which can be found here), that revision might have sufficed to correct the misimpression your reporter deliberately created for the obvious purpose of attempting to affect the upcoming election. But the story is spreading rapidly and it is incumbent upon you not only to deal severely, publicly, and quickly with your reporter, but also to contact every news outlet that repeated the fabrication, apologize to them and request that they print your apology and retraction. Then, and only then, you should explain to your readers how you dealt with the reporter that so abused their trust.

The only possible result of your failure to do so immediately is for all future AP reports on the election to be treated as campaign press releases issued by the Kerry campaign organization. Perhaps under those circumstances, it would be necessary for the FEC to be informed of your in-kind contributions to the Senator's campaign.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Carey Gage

(Via Powerline)

 
OUTSIDE THE MARGIN OF ERROR

InstantMan points to a Time press release about a new poll. The poll shows the race to be 52/41/3, Bush/Kerry/Nader among likely voters if the election were held today. That obviously leaves undecided and "other" at 4%. The margin of error is +/-4%. That means that the survey puts Bush's lead outside the margin of error, and that's a first in this race.

What is the change in voter preferences among the candidates from the last Time poll? 46/44/5 Bush/Kerry/Nader.

There's more in the press release, but not enough to answer the many questions that occur to me, such as:

Did Bush take votes from Kerry, Nader, or
some combination of the two (and what combination)?

What are the numbers without Nader in the race? (Support for third party candidates typically fades as election day approaches, and Kerry is more likely than Bush to benefit from Nader defections. Also, Nader is having trouble getting on the ballot in some states, and he obviously won't be a factor where he is not on the ballot.)

Is there a state by state breakdown (and accompanying totals for the electoral college?

If not, is there at least a breakout of the potential swing states like Ohio, Florida and Michigan?

What percentage of likely voters is undecided, and how did that change from the last Time poll?

Standard warning language: The election is not being held today. Horse-race polls may or may not reflect reality on the day they were compiled. They sure as hell do not provide a reliable indication of what will happen two months from now.

Still. I like the numbers.

UPDATE, 9/4/04: Newsweek comes up with similar figures. They call it 54/43/3, Bush/Kerry/Nader, with (apparently) no undecideds and a margin of error of +/-4%. Perhaps they just left out the undecideds and figured the percentage of voters for each candidate from the pool of decided voters. The Newsweek survey was taken on Thursday and Friday, 9/2-3 (and therefore at least partially reflects the results of Bush's acceptance speech), compared with the Time survey, which was taken on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8/31-9/2 (and therefore could not reflect any effect from the speech).

Bush's reaction to the polls is the right one: a shrug and "I've got a lot of work to do."

Assuming that both polls are accurate, there is still no information on the effect the changed voter alignment will have on the electoral college.

Also, Glen Reynolds points to this table, breaking down the Newsweek survey by day to show the effect of the acceptance speech:

9/3 only 54 38 4 4
9/2 only 49 43 3 5
That is a helluva bounce from a single speech.

Glen speculates that the numbers may also reflect the disaster that was Kerry's midnight rally after the Republican convention. (Approximate quote: I will not have it. I will not allow Dick Cheney and his five draft deferments to question my patriotism. Of course, Cheney did no such thing. Cheney questioned his policies and his judgment. The absence of any substantive response to Bush and Cheney was striking.)

This is not good news for Kerry. Those are Dukakis like numbers.

 
FLYING BELOW THE RADAR

This blog is not one of the popular ones. It probably never will be. That bothers me. Not much, because I mostly write this for myself, and anyone else reading it is kind of a bonus. But it would be nice to be widely read, too.

Steven denBeste has what, in my opinion, is one of the best sites on the web. It is interesting, wide ranging, well written, and well argued. He even reads and (mostly) responds to the email people send him by the terabyte. He is, as a result, widely read. And just as widely criticized. All three regular readers of this site will know that I think most of the criticism of Cap'n Clueless is unwarranted and ill founded, but I suppose it comes with the territory. It's an unfortunate fact of Life On The Net that the moonbats will try to make your virtual life miserable, and that those attempts will be increase in frequency, stridency and viciousness as your readership increases.

And apparently for denBeste, the moonbats have managed to surgically remove any trace of enjoyment from doing what he does. So he says he won't be doing it again for at least a while. He's complained about it. He's tried to deal with it, in a number of other ways, as well:

Turning off the comments on his site.

Consigning people to the Bozo Bin.

Asking (nicely in the beginning, more pointedly towards the end) not to write letters commenting on peripheral or irrelevant minutiae in his posts.

Addressing the criticism, both privately and publicly.

And they still managed to shut him up (even if only temporarily). And it remains to be seen whether the Captain's self imposed hiatus is temporary.

That's a shame. DenBeste is a very smart guy who writes well and has a lot to say. I enjoy hearing from him, and would like to do so more, not less, often.

But he certainly has no obligation to continue to provide me with enjoyable reading material, and he has this problem that won't go away. It's not a problem I have, so I wonder whether any advice I could offer would be effective. But I'm going to anyway. You just knew that was coming, didn't you?

There are two basic ways to approach the problem: Reduce the amount of annoying commentary and reduce the annoyance caused by said annoying commentary.

The first approach is not within even denBeste's ability if he is going to continue to do things as he does them now. Publicly posted material will draw public comment. So maybe he can change things so that, if the muse strikes and he pens another essay, he could email it to subscribers. Then his essays would at least start out life in a less public manner and would presumably be sent only to those he found not to be annoying. More work? Maybe. I don't know. I think it might be less expensive than the way he does things now, since the bandwidth usage on his website would be reduced.

As to the second approach, I think that Steven's problem is almost entirely internal to him. That's the bad news. The good news is that this means he can fix it by himself. He gets so much crap from various quarters in part because it has a visible effect on him, and therefore invites more of the same. This, of course, is easy to say, coming from one who does not get any grief by reason of posting here, much less the volume directed at the Captain.

But still. Why the hell should denBeste give two shits what Moonbat Mary from East Bumfuck thinks of his post. Or his character, or his motivations or his intelligence or... or ... or ... And, for that matter, why should he care what anyone, important or not, rational or not, informed or not, thinks. What matters, or rather what should matter, to him is what he thinks of the post, not anyone else. At least that's the way it is for me, otherwise I would long since have given up on this blog, because practically no one thinks anything, good or bad, about what is written here, except on a few infrequent occasions. But I am not facing the constant drip drip drip of minor annoyances by reason this site that denBeste is as a result of his. So maybe I'm full of it.

Illegimiti non carborundum.

Don't let the bastards wear you down, Steven.

And send out some more of that free ice cream. The portions have been too small and too infrequent lately.