In Other Words, I'm An Idiot...

This totally clears everything up.

Lynn Sweet:

An item I posted July 25 about Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) canceling a visit to a U.S. military base in Germany has now become grist for the Republicans to attack Obama.

Some points:

*Contrary to what the Republican National Committee stated in one of their missives, Obama senior strategist David Axelrod never said that the Pentagon told the campaign Obama should not come to the base. The GOP, citing my blog post, wrote in one of their releases, "Obama Senior Strategist David Axelrod Said The Pentagon Told The Campaign That Barack Obama "Should Not Come."

*The headline on my original post were my words--not Axelrod's. That headline "Pentagon tells Obama not to visit U.S. troops at German base because it would be too political" was my take.

I revised the headline a few hours later because it was wrong. The Pentagon never told Obama not to come. The issue was whether Obama campaign military advisor Scott Gration, a retired Air Force General, could accompany Obama. I also rewrote a paragraph to eliminate an Axelrod quote that I misunderstood.

The new headline on my post read "Pentagon tells Obama aide a visit to U.S. base in Germany would be seen as political." I thought that new headline and revised paragraph solved the problem; usually there is just one URL for a blog post. But due to a server glitch at the Sun-Times, both the original and updated versions existed on the Internet. The Republicans have been linking to the original post and not the updated version.

Do you think we could get that "glitch" cleared up sometime soon? A whole lot of time and effort have been spent trying to debunk and defend and demystify--how about, next time, we say what really happened and not play around with headlines, okay?

Those mistakes touched off a firestorm that was utilized, via Drudge and a host of right-wing outlets, to launch a massive attack on the integrity of Senator Barack Obama. All because of a glitch, a quote that was misunderstood, and a headline that was wrong.

Thanks for clarifying all of this FOUR FUCKING DAYS LATER and for, you know, FEEDING THE RIGHT WING HATE MACHINE everything they needed.

--WS