The media is embarrassing itself over Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell. By pointing out how dumb they believe these two conservative women to be this week the media has only pointed out how dumb and how low they’ll go to hurt these two women.
Yesterday there was a media firestorm because the Washington Post ran a story saying that Christine O’Donnell didn’t know that the establishment clause was in the Constitution. Hahahahaha. The media all had a big laugh and then put on their very serious grown up faces for the cameras and asked what this meant for the conservative movement in general and did this prove that Tea Partiers are all knuckle dragging Neanderthals who shouldn’t be trusted with the vote never mind a Senate seat.
Here’s the lede from the original Washington Post/AP ran, according to Weasel Zippers:
WILMINGTON, Del. — Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.
Now that lede was based on the quote they put into the story they said went down like this:
Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that “religious doctrine doesn’t belong in our public schools.”
“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked him. When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”
Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.
“You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp,” Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O’Donnell’s grasp of the Constitution.
Now this set off a firestorm in the media and all sorts of television pundits sounded off on this.
The problem? That’s not what happened. And the Washington Post knows it too because last night they went back and rewrote the story.
The lede now reads:
WILMINGTON, Del. — Republican Christine O’Donnell challenged her Democratic rival Tuesday to show where the Constitution requires separation of church and state, drawing swift criticism from her opponent, laughter from her law school audience and a quick defense from prominent conservatives.
Why the change in the lede. Well the rewritten story now actually tells what happened between Coons and O’Donnell. And guess what, Christine O’Donnell is absolutely right in what she’s saying and wasn’t confused at all.
“Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked while Democrat Chris Coons, an attorney, sat a few feet away.
Coons responded that O’Donnell’s question “reveals her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. … The First Amendment establishes a separation.”
She interrupted to say, “The First Amendment does? … So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ is in the First Amendment?”
So it’s clear now that the reporter lied. Perhaps the reporter didn’t know that the “Separation of church and state” didn’t appear in the Constitution. But don’t they have editors?
And all that gasping and laughing from the Widener law students kind of makes Widener look prety bad that they didn’t know it either.
The conversation relayed in the original piece is not close to what actually happened. The newspaper either lied or were incredibly bad at their job. But it does seem they become incredibly bad at their job when covering conservatives an awful lot.
And mind you, they didn’t run a correction. They simply changed the story later.
Now, another issue happened recently where the media embarrassed itself over a conservative woman. This time it was Sarah Palin. Sarah exhorted a crowd of Tea Partiers not to celebrate this election too soon by saying “Don’t party like it’s 1773 yet.”
Markos Moulitsas and PBS’s Gwen Ifill immediately tweeted disparaging remarks about Palin thinking she’d been confused about her dates but it turned out they were only highlighting their own ignorance. Palin, of course, was referencing the Boston Tea Party which makes sense as she was speaking in front of a bunch of Tea Partiers. Duh!
As we know the media dislikes right wing women and they push the meme as often as they can that they’re stupid. This week the media embarrassed themselves. But unfortunately this won’t stop them. I’m sure they’re going to embarrass themselves a lot more the next few years.
October 21, 2010 at 6:54 am
I could not agree more with you….
I have said to a few conservative sites that echoed the above headline..
Coons states “Congress shall make no establishment of religion”
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Now to point out the obvious she was correct twice….
And yet another… The legislature can’t legislate for or against a religious establishment… Thus we could not have a national church….
Case law does not trump Supreme Law.. However we have allowed courts to do that very thing through case law rewrite the U.S. Constitution….
Reynolds v US (98 US 145 [1878]). Has been abused by other courts….
October 21, 2010 at 7:51 am
If you already believed O'D is a moron, and listened to the recording, then it's understandable that they'd interpret it as her not knowing the text of the first, rather than objecting to "shall make no law" meaning separation.
What did this blog say a while back? Scorn makes you stupid?
October 21, 2010 at 10:27 am
Wow, I really find this hard to believe, how can this be possible? Doesn't she preach the constitution should decide everything???
October 21, 2010 at 1:06 pm
All well and good, blogger. But if you're going to comment on stupidity of the press, you should learn to SPELL. It is "LEAD" not "lede", and hopefully you know that "lead" can be defined as noun-a soft metal,the reins for an animal, the beginning of a news article, and as a verb-to direct.
October 21, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Oh, I see now this is an "inside journalism" usage. But is still distracting from your otherwise good observation of reporting fiat.
Lede: A mid-20th century neologism from a deliberate misspelling of lead (reverting to its archaic, phonetic spelling – compare Middle English), intended to avoid confusion with its homograph meaning a strip of type metal used for positioning type in the frame. Compare hed (“headline”).
Usage seems mostly confined to the U.S. Originally only journalistic usage in general US English that it is no longer labeled as jargon by major US dictionaries such as Merriam-Webster[3] and American Heritage. Noted as “sometimes spelled” in 1959, “often spelled” in 1969, and asserted in the 1979 reprint of a 1974 book.
In 1990, William Safire was still able to say that "lede" was jargon not listed in regular dictionaries. Safire 1990: "You will not find this spelling in dictionaries; it is still an insiders' variant, steadily growing in frequency of use…. Will lede break out of its insider status and find its way into general use?… To suggest this is becoming standard would be misledeing"
October 21, 2010 at 2:21 pm
I think quoting entire irrelevant Wikipedia entries is distracting from otherwise good commentary.
October 21, 2010 at 5:05 pm
I don't think lede means "headline"…. Journalism.about.com calls in the first para of a story.
That is, it's the lead-in, but a very specific meaning. Fitting, since it's the most important part of an article.
Irony, anyone?
October 21, 2010 at 5:33 pm
Sarah Palin has been on a roll. She understood that ObamaCare meant rationing; that renunciation of first-strike nuclear power against a biological or chemical attack was daft; that Keynesian economics was bunk; and that animus toward Israel and indifference to our allies more generally was dangerous. What’s ignorant about all that? (J. Rubin)
October 21, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Anonymous,
It's wise once you've discovered your own ignorance in incorrectly speaking to something of which you have insufficient knowledge to just admit that you were wrong, rather than lamely trying to walk back your comment.
October 21, 2010 at 7:22 pm
Wow – so there's two women out there who know American History AND the Constitution???
I should try to put my shoes on and get out of the kitchen more often:)
October 22, 2010 at 12:59 am
I made a short animation on xtranormal.com (a website which is a lot of fun to mess with, by the way) about this: http://davewalker.org/blog1/2010/10/20/xtranormal-theatre/