November 19, 2009...6:17 pm

Just saying …

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Actually, I’m not saying it but Best of the Web is:

Accountability Journalism
An Associated Press dispatch, written by Erica Werner and Richard Alonso-Zaldivar, compares the House and Senate ObamaCare bills. We’d like to compare this dispatch to the AP’s dispatch earlier this week “fact checking” Sarah Palin’s new book. Here goes:

Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
• ObamaCare bills: 2
• Palin book: 11

Number of pages in document being covered:
• ObamaCare bills: 4,064
• Palin book: 432

Number of pages per AP reporter:
• ObamaCare bill: 2,032
• Palin book: 39.3

On a per-page basis, that is, the AP devoted 52 times as much manpower to the memoir of a former Republican officeholder as to a piece of legislation that will cost trillions of dollars and an untold number of lives. That’s what they call accountability journalism.

11 Comments

  • any other Republicans wishing Sarah Palin would go back to Alaska?

  • that’s not the point he is trying to make…stay on topic

  • Had a conversation today with an African American woman who agreed that Palin’s entry into the 2008 presidential campaign illustrated the absurdity of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate since Palin, as unqualified as she was, had, by any objective measure, more experience and accomplishments in government than did Obama. Hat’s the reason Palin drove the O-bots into berserk fits of rage then and it’s still the reason. I think it’s hilarious.

  • Where did you get your “facts” about AP resources? Do you also understand the difference between writers/reporters and fact checkers?

  • Oh Chistopher,

    Are you not overlooking the fact that the Palin manuscript has buried many subtleties in it that clearly need to be chased down? The health care bill is so relatively is otherwise so easy…

    All one has to do look up a few clauses or two in the collected Federal laws of the land. Of course, just how this or that one small change might affect existing regulations is of no major consequence… But heck such impacts would be of no interest to the readers of the Associated Press wire service. Would they?

    Cheers, Lars

  • Not to worry, Christopher. Oprah has announced she is retiring. That ought to keep 72% of AP reporters busy!

    One sixth of our economy in a new health care bill? Hundreds of millions of lives affected?

    YAWN……………….

  • THIS observation makes a meaningful point:

    Number of AP reporters assigned to story:
    • ObamaCare bills: 2
    • Palin book: 11

    THESE subsequent observations are specious crapola:

    Number of pages in document being covered:
    • ObamaCare bills: 4,064
    • Palin book: 432

    Number of pages per AP reporter:
    • ObamaCare bill: 2,032
    • Palin book: 39.3

  • Margaret Thatcher

    They all know that she is the new me and they are frightened already.
    Mark my words, first female in office.

  • Old School Grump

    Nuh uh, Margaret Thatcher at 5:28, you had serious brains and serious, uh, testicularity. Compared to you, Palin is a complete nitwit.

  • I’m a republican for keeping Palin in Alaska. I can’t stand to listen to her.

  • Grump,

    Compared to broccoli, Palin is a complete nitwit.


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