New York Times Confuses Year-Old Book With Obama Inaugural Speech
The clock's running out on the press and the myriad ways that they can possibly mis-report the news of this election, but these consummate professionals continue to find ways to distinguish themselves. Take this part of yesterday's New York Times article, "Building a White House Team Before the Election Is Decided":
Mr. Obama's transition team is led by a former White House chief of staff, John D. Podesta, who has been preparing for the task at the research organization he runs, the Center for American Progress, since long before it was clear who would win his party's nomination...
Mr. Podesta has been mapping out the transition so systematically that he has already written a draft Inaugural Address for Mr. Obama, which he published this summer in a book called "The Power of Progress." The speech calls for rebuilding a "grand alliance" with the rest of the world, bringing troops home from Iraq, recommitting to the war in Afghanistan, cutting poverty in half in 10 years and reducing greenhouse gases 80 percent by 2050.
Okay. Here's the funny thing about the boldfaced sentence. Not only is it entirely false, but the truth is actually so easy to verify, that a child could have factchecked this paragraph. The Power Of Progress was published on August 18, 2008. As with most books, it took time to produce. In the case of this book, much of the work had been completed before anyone thought that Barack Obama was the nominee. According to Podesta's organization, the Center for American Progress, "The inaugural address was written and submitted to the publisher in March 2008, during a time when Podesta was supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Podesta re-did the introduction to the book -- but not the inaugural address -- in June when it became clear that Obama would emerge as the nominee."
Of course, looking for anything that might advantage his campaign without tying it to the crazy antics of face-carving fabricators, the McCain campaign seized on this story as a sign of Obama's "presumptuousness." Please note how the fact that this story came from the New York Times forces McCain to not cite the source, having made NYT-hate a critical component of his campaign.
MCCAIN: You know what? We just learned from a newspaper today that Senator Obama's inaugural address is already written. You know? I'm not making it up, I'm not making it up. An awful lot of voters are still undecided but he's decided for them that, well, why wait? It's time to move forward with his first inaugural address. My friends, when I pull this thing off, I have a request for my opponent. I want him to save that manuscript of his inaugural address and donate it to the Smithsonian so they can put it right next to the Chicago paper that said, "Dewey defeats Truman."
Poor John McCain, screwed again by the Grey Lady! Anyway, Podesta responds:
While I appreciate Senator McCain's plug for my book, the Power of Progress, his charge is a complete fabrication. He bases this claim on a New York Times story which distorted and confused a chapter I wrote last spring, for a book that was published this summer, with work I am doing this fall on behalf of Senator Obama.
The inaugural address in the "Power of Progress" was a literary device I used to sum up the arguments in the book. It was completed well in advance of my work for Senator Obama and has nothing to do with the Obama campaign or pre-transiton. No one involved in pre-transition work has written one word of any address inaugural or otherwise.
And naturally, the NYT's Caucus blog manages the factcheck their peers cannot.
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First Posted: 10-26-08 02:19 AM | Updated: 11-25-08 05:12 AM