The AP's conduct in this matter indicates beyond all question that, like David Scott Anderson and a host of like-minded types, their priority is to do damage to President Bush and his Administration, not to inform or enlighten the American public.

Pardon my rib-it, rib-it ..... Two shay Kevin. AFP's site/self penned 'honesty/integrity profile' is a hoot as well. Don't be too hard on Senor Kurtz, his heart used to be in the right place. Though now possibly lost to partisanship .... forever?

http://thetarpit.blogspot.com/2005/11/howie-kurtz-pimps-lefty-bloggers.html

http://anechoicroom.blogspot.com/2005/11/howard-kurtz-goes-down-rabbit-hole.html

Wait. It gets better. The reporter and his editor should be called on the carpet by NY General to explain how the hell this happened. To not know the difference between a breach and the levee collapsing is a big enough error to get the reporter off that story. I notice though, they merrily continue to report this story. Could it be the unions made it impossible to fire or at least discipline bad reporters?

So we knew there might be enough water to top the levees, but we didn't know that it might take less water to bereach the levees?

There is still a bit of soin on the correction. Overrunning isn't the term used, but overtopped. The two have different definitions, but considering the Press' vaunted crack editorial fact checking ways I guess this is fairly close.

Be sure to also "clarify" that despite all the transcripts were publicly available for months,and the networks had access to those same footages, these videos were indeed "confidential."

The AP definition of "confidential videotapes" is quite interesting, to say the least.

Ebrahim sounds like an Arabic name. Nah. She couldn't be biased or anything. Right??

So we knew there might be enough water to top the levees, but we didn't know that it might take less water to bereach the levees?

Actually one breach was caused by fraudulent behavior on the part of local contractors and the other was caused by an enormous floating platform breaking free from its anchor and slamming into the levee. So no, it wasn't the water or the Cat. 3 hurricane. It was shoddy construction (completed weeks before the storm) and a freak accident.

But I'm sure there's a way for you to blame it on Bush. There's just gotta be!

So, which national newspapers have published the AP's correction? WaPo? NYT? What good does the correction do if the general public isn't aware of it?

In response to Frances Poretto's comment that the AP's "priority is to do damage to President Bush and his Administration", it would appear to me that this Administration does not need the AP for that; they are doing a rather fine job of it themselves. Don't shoot the messenger. By any objective measure, this Administration, its policies and actions, are simply a joke, at best.

Kudo's to the last poster. The only reason you all would be so adamant about the hair splitting difference is blind loyalty for Bush. Why don't you take a step back and if you want to get so up in arms about holding someone to their word and jumping all over them for their mistakes...lets start with this one "anybody involved in leaking the name of an undercover CIA official will no longer be a part of my administration"...who said that one...hmmm...and Karl Rove...well...or what about the hard facts that have landed 150,000 of our sons and daughters in the middle of a hornets nest with 2,300+ haviong returned in body bags...or that he just learned about this port deal yet was ready to veto any congressional action to block the sale. You all are starting to sound Clintonian..."it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is". But I guess with a 35% approval rating for your boy, it depends on what the meaning of the word "overrun" is. Feeling kind of overrun yourselves, huh? Boy it must suck knowing you all bet your own personal integrity on a loosing horse yet have to watch the race play out everyday in your living rooms for the next 3 years! So if this little "correction" is a moral victory for you, enjoy it this weekend...I am sure there is another Bush administration folly waiting for us on Monday!!!

This is truly sad. In the face of overwhelming evidence of incompetence in the preparation for and clean up after the hurricane, you guys are clinging for dear life to a distinction between water coming "over" or "through" the levees. Do you think this distinction somehow absolves Bush from the government's corruption and incompetence in the award of federal contracts and grant money? Does it have any bearing on the squabbling and back stabbing in his disorganized Department of Homeland Security? Does it close the gap between the promises Bush made in his press conference in New Orleans and his resulting performance? Does it repair our new image to the world as a country with third world squalor and poverty? How would the water coming "over" the levee help the unnecessary loss of life and social turmoil caused by lack of preparation?

If you really want to save the country, your little lynch mob against AP would be better aimed at correcting the far more outrageous "mistakes" and inaccuracies in the president's statements about the budget, the war and medicare.

Fellas, read the AP clarification. They admit there is a difference between over topping and breaching. That's why they clarified. This isn't something Bush loyalists are just making up, and its not a hair breadth distinction. The difference between over topping and breaching is the difference between some flooding and catastrophic damage.
Also read that noted Republican Rag Popular Mechanics. It doesn't lay the blame on the Bush Administration. Neither did the Army or the navy. AS a matter of fact federal hlep arrived more quickly than it normally does. No one is making that up, it's just a fact. I'm sorry, but the folks that are sneering about "Bush Loyalists" are simply wrong here, and perhaps a bit well, overwrought.

corvan,
To ppl like rick and iorek, Bush and anyone that isn't against Bush with all their hearts, are stupid and/or evil people. To them, our great sin today is not blindly believing the press, because we blindly believe Bush.
No truth other than Bush=Evil is relevant to these folks.

don't you guys ever get tired of licking Bush's balls?

To "SCSIwuzzy" - Is that you behind there George W.?

Who else uses the term "evil people" besides my three year old daughter and the guy in the oval office? And my daughter is in the other room...get back to work fabricating lies and funneling monies to your cronies...let the rest of us blog for a change...

Did Bush post a "Correction" regarding Jack Abrhamoff? "I don't know the fella"...or WMD's? Or whatever else he has been "inaccurate" about?

I would once like to see the Bush Administration have the balls that the AP has just shown to issue a press release that read "Correction: Faulty Intelligence Manipulated in March to War". Then I might respect the guy. The AP still has me believeing them cuz they owned up to their mistake.

Right on un-evil-doer!

"...country run by evil people who kill innocents..."

I mean come on; that's the President of the United States of America speaking. That is embarrassing. It sounds like the language of a bad ABC after school special.

Having served my country in the military for 15 years, I am so proud to be an American because otherwise I would be downright embarrassed by this guy who stayed stateside during war time yet sends other peoples sons and daughters into harms way.

But that is what I love about this democracy I served to protect...November is only 8 months away...can you say "lame duck"...quack, quack!

A lot of protestations here, hmmm...

I know, Iknow, the UAE are good Arabs, and we are stupid and racist for not having the clarity to distinguish the difference... Silly us for not understanding the delicate intricacies of semantic spin, as churned out by the White House...

Truthiness is king today, but the king's garments are melting into nothingness, as we speak. The nakedness of this administration's spin, the deafening call to believe the lies, despite of the facts that strike us like stinging slaps, is now beginning to unravel...

It took a while (too long,) but, finally, we are now seeing the pathetic attempts of the White House to kill truth for what they are. They played their last card a while ago. So, go ahead, and publish their obfuscations. -We know you have to.-

2 things I know: Our great country has suffered two catastrophies under Bush.
1- 9/11
Administration: "Who could have predicted that they would fly planes into our buildings?"
Record: Many documented warnings of that exact scenario.

2- KATRINA
Administration: "Who could have predicted that the levees would fail?"
Record: Many documented warnings of that exact scenario.

We get it. Period.
.
.
----------------------------------------------------

Technically, the levees were undermined before they were breached. And the Corp of Engineers had warned for years, and the right wing sociopaths running this country had ignored, that maintenance funds were needed to prevent exactly what happened. The criminal-in-chief had been warned the entire time he was in office, if he had bothered to pay attention, that this could happen. But the lunatic right wing continues to play semantic games.

What ..... like Kos is shut down today? D.U. server's crashed? Puhleeeeeeze. BFD, Dub isn't Leslie Howard, or Peter O'Toole. And (better sit down for this one), he puts his pants on one leg at a time (I told you to sit down first). It's America. Nearly 300 million people. And each one allowed their very own thoughts. Their own voice. Many will disagree, much of the time. Disagreeing for its own sake however, is mereley the mark of dem/lib partisan hacks. No issues, no ideas, no candidates who can win. "Evil doer." That's it. That's all you guys have. Bupkis. How many millions of little liberal heads are going to implode when the Dems lose the White House in '08 ...... ? It will not be pretty. No Sir, Maam, or Hermaphrodite.

"Evil doer." That's it. That's all you guys have. --Elmo

uhhm, is that really all you think "they" have? Really? Elmo, really? That is all you think dissent centers around?

Is that how little you respect the majority dissent in this country? C'mon. Gimme a brake. Take your eye off the hermaphrodites and look at the average people in this country... They are pissed, and it's not about semantics. You are spinning. Why?
-------------------------------------------------

No spin, honest. I accept the Prez as he is. A flesh and blood human being. A mortal man. Charged with grave tasks. Simply not possible for him to please everyone, even those who voted for him. I see no point in obstructionism. Y'all doan like Dub, fine. Dangit, I'm just tired of all the whining, and know it won't stop when you cats lose, again. I voted for Gore on '00. Couldn't hang with the left anymore in '04. I was embarasssed. I disagree with a lot of the right. I do however accept those differences. Trying times leave little room for cry babies. here's a hanky.

Elmo, You try to explain, and you still end up demonizing...

Don't insult and trivialize. People aren't simply "crybabies." Gimme a break. That's like O'Reilley talking. You can do better.

Fact is, MANY Americans are suspicious of Bush, and I'm sure you know why. Don't you? Need I go through the really long list that starts with the elections, meanders through an incredible record of -incompetency-, details the loss of civic interests when in conflict with corporations, and ends at outright lies, cronyism, and draft-dodging elitists, while SIMULTANEOUSLY playing the fake faith/patriot card?

You know all this.

So stop calling people crybabies. If that is really your opinion, instead of a ploy to trivialize, then you need to rethink your opinion, it's not accurate or respectful... Your demonization of dissent is unamerican, and puerile.

---------------------------------------------------

A difference that doesn't make a difference - the essence of what he was told is that the levees are in trouble, and whether the water comes over the top, under the bottom, or they collapse, even the best scenario of the three means big trouble for N.O. To get that information and then say nothing and fly off to Crawford and the west coast is the point. FEMA, especially Brown and Chertoff, were parylzed and confused. It's not like they didn't know. Plain incompetance/lies.

Where do they even find journalists this stupid? How much ability does it take to listen to a video and write down what is said on it? The AP, like the rest of journalism, is populated by fools.

http://metromedicalonline.com/3600025710.html

Hmmm.

he essence of what he was told is that the levees are in trouble, and whether the water comes over the top, under the bottom, or they collapse, even the best scenario of the three means big trouble for N.O.

Blah blah blah. Yada yada yada.

Yet another liberal with opinions but no knowledge.

Joy.

http://guynomer.free.fr/images/deaf_dumb_blind.jpg

besides, all y'all's protesting just too much, kinda sounds like you're all whinning about what you trivialize as "whinning"...
reread the posts and see who the crybabies are... And you accuse that all "they" got is "evil-doer", when in fact all you got is "topping vs. breaching". As if! No care for the human, mortal, flesh and blood sufferers, (citizens who were let down by our government and don't give a f#*k about your pathetic and transparent word games), only apologies for chimpy... Yadda yadda blah blah.

Deaf ears. If I wanted faith-based apologists, I know where to find much better... Thanks for letting me visit.
---------------------------------------------------

No care for the human, mortal, flesh and blood sufferers, (citizens who were let down by our government and don't give a f#*k about your pathetic and transparent word games)

Well, seeing as how you don't give a f*ck, what good would it do for us to dance to your tune anyway?

Left-wing propiganda about Bush is often about redefining the english language. Being wrong about WMDs (maybe) becomes a "lie" even though Bill Clinton said he believed there were WMDs in Iraq as did most the congressmen and senators. A banner put up on an aircraft carrier by the crew of that ship as it returned home from it's mission gets taken as being the president's words about the entire conflict. Only by being purposely stupid could anyone make that leap, but that's exactly what the left did.

Leaking the name of a domestic CIA operative isn't even a crime, but the left want's to make a big deal about it while ignoring the outright lies Wilson told about his findings. Here you have a government official sent on a mission to gather intelligence and he lies about what he found for political reasons. Where's the left's outrage over that.

Now we have the breached rather than overtopped terms the left wants to pretend mean the same thing, but the difference is huge. If you had a plugged drain and left the water run in you bathtub it would overtop and no one would think there was something wrong with the bathtub. However, if the side of the bathtub collapsed before it was full, that would be an unexpected and catastrophic failure. Obviously, with a category 5 hurricane on track to New Orleans, you could expect the levees to be overtopped, but no one expected them to fail the way they did.

I know that won't satisfy the left. It's always the fault of Bush regardless of what twisted logic is needed to reach that conclusion. Just know that you are setting the standard the next democratic President will be judged by. Any error will be a lie and every sign in view when he speaks will by his words.

Overrun = the destruction of large swaths of the city

Breached = the destruction of large swaths of the city

Overtopped = the destruction of large swaths of the city

While Bill Clinton was the master of this kind of " depends on what the meaning of 'is' is..."I do believe that the redeployment of the English Language for partisan battle was brought to the greatest heights by Gingrich in his 1996 GOPAC Memo:
"Language: A Key Mechanism of Control"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4443.htm

That is a mighty informative read, and will ring a bell with all of us who have been paying attention this last decade.

"Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" has been the conservative playbook ever since, with splendid results, to be sure- at least until reality encroaches on the rhetoric.

Yep. Overtopped... overrun... breached....
Bushites- please keep fighting on this hill.

Posterity is just around the corner.

-INFOHAZARD

"Reality is that thing that doesn't go away when you ignore it." -Philip K. Dick