WOW - The Trib This Morning Does Itself Proud

Can they even get away with something like this?

From today's Sunday Pops:

There seems to be a profound mistrust of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress," says political guru Charlie Cook. "(It's) a sense that, at best, this president and Congress lack an understanding of small business. But among many, it goes much further than mistrust. They see Democrats in Washington as hostile forces that could implement policies that would effectively destroy their businesses," Mr. Cook adds. Translation: All that "change" has been shaken from their pockets and now President Hope is going after the paper money.

Now, who do you think the "they" are in that passage? Just reading the passage you'd think that Charlie Cook was talking about the electorate in general, right?

Wrong.

Here's the column Richard Mellon Scaife's braintrust misquotes. And here's the specific paragraph they misquote:

But privately, some business leaders and bankers say that beyond small-business owners' concerns about the direction the economy and the durability of this recession, political concerns have crept in. There seems to be a profound mistrust of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, a sense that, at best, this president and Congress lack an understanding of small business. But among many, it goes much further than mistrust. They see Democrats in Washington as hostile forces that could implement policies that would effectively destroy their businesses.

Cook's talking about the distrust among "some business leaders and bankers." The "they" isn't the everyone but a small segment of the population. If there's any doubt, here's Cook's last paragraph:

In short, even inadvertently, Democrats have made their own job harder by alienating the one group of people they want to be hiring and turning the unemployment rate around.

And all that aside, make sure you swallow whatever morning coffee you're sipping before you read the very next sentence from Charlie Cook. It's right after the sentence the Trib misquoted:

While I don't think that is true -- and Democrats are quick to say it's important to get health care costs under control, with their unsustainably high increases jeopardizing the ability of almost any business to make money -- a lot of these business owners simply don't see it that way, or they choose not to see it that way.

So what the Trib uses as a quote from Charlie Cook, Cook doesn't actually believe. Can they actually do that?