Journamalism: Kornblut Edition

Atrios spots Anne Kornblut of the NYTimes making stuff up:

From the New York Times:

ROGERS, Ark., July 15 -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, returning to her red-state ties, chastised Democrats Saturday for taking on issues that arouse conservatives and turn out Republican voters rather than finding consensus on mainstream subjects.

Without mentioning specific subjects like gay marriage, Mrs. Clinton said: "We do things that are controversial. We do things that try to inflame their base."

"We are wasting time," the senator told a group of Democratic women here, on part of a two-day swing through a state that could provide an alternate hub to New York if she starts a national political campaign.

Clinton obviously meant no such thing. The "we" was Congress, as led by Republicans, not Democrats. Here's the bit:

You have to ask yourself, we have all these problems, and we have solutions sitting out there, why can't we move in the right direction? And it really comes down to a difference in values and philosophy. . . . And so we were talking one day and saying, you know, we as individuals, we have all of this legislation, we can't get it on the floor of the Senate. We can't get a vote on it because the Republican majority wants to vote on other things. . . . You know, Blanche Lincoln has a bill to make healthcare affordable for small business, I have a bill I was talking to you about with respect to energy independence, we have legislation sitting in the Senate to address these problems. But with the Republican majority, that's not their priority. So we do other things, we do things that are controversial, we do things that try to inflame their base so that they can turn people out and vote for their candidates. I think we are wasting time, we are wasting lives, we need to get back to making America work again, in a bipartisan, nonpartisan way."

Grrrr. Kornblut makes it even worse by implying that Democrats are the ones bringing up gay marriage, when it's the goddamn Republicans who are doing so.

But this just has to be a fluke. I am sure Kornblut almost never makes mistakes like that right? Ummm:

[NYTimes] Editors' Note

An article last Sunday [by Kornblut] about books of collected quotations from public figures compared a new one about Hillary Rodham Clinton with less recent books about President Bush and Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The third paragraph of the article referred to "an alleged use of vulgarity toward a Secret Service agent" attributed to Mrs. Clinton in the new book. But because of an editing error, the article did not make it clear until the 16th paragraph that many quotations in the book had been culled from disputed sources or unverifiable private conversations. (The Bush and Rumsfeld books, by contrast, included mostly comments made in front of crowds or at news conferences, often on videotape.) The distinction should have been made as soon as the example was cited.

The article also noted that on the cover of the quotation book -- " 'I've Always Been a Yankees Fan': Hillary Clinton in Her Own Words" -- Mrs. Clinton is shown wearing a Cubs cap. But because of an editing error, this explanation was omitted: "As early as 1994, Mrs. Clinton was on record explaining that growing up in the Midwest, she had both her hometown favorite, the Cubs, who are in the National League, and also an American League favorite, the Yankees."

The article also quoted incorrectly from a comment about Bill Clinton , reprinted in the quotation book from Mrs. Clinton's 2003 memoir, "Living History." Mrs. Clinton wrote, "I knew that Bill respected military service, that he would have served had he been called" -- not "that he would serve had he been called."

Well, maybe it's just Hillary Clinton stories that she has trouble with. Or maybe not:

This weekend on Meet the Press, there were really many moments of high travesty, notably from substitute host Andrea Mitchell. But the MWO Whore of the Week award would really have to go to the Boston Globe's Anne Kornblut, who popped out with this:

MS. KORNBLUT: Which is still something that there's a bit of back and forth over. The truth of his record, the criticism that's coming from the Swift Boat ads, is that he betrayed his fellow veterans. Well, that's a subjective question, that he came back from the war and then protested it. So, I mean, that is truly something that's subjective. . . .

But still, she only messes up a story every few months, right? I mean, look at what the Note has to say, via Eric Boehlert:

"Will New York Times management recognize how great [a reporter] Anne Kornblut is and act accordingly?"

As Brad Delong says, "Why oh why can't we have a better press corps?"