How The Trib Is Covering (For) Romney

Doing something a little different today - I think. 

In today's Tribune-Review, I find two pieces written or co-written by columnist Salena Zito. We've looked at Zito's writing before, by the way.  But today might be something new - or at least newish.

But before we go any further, let's see who Salena Zito is.  Here is her bio at Townhall.com:

Salena Zito is a political analyst, reporter and editorial page columnist. She has also reported on Pennsylvania politics for The Weekly Standard. A board member of the Center for Media & Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, Salena Zito honed her skills working on the campaigns of George H.W. Bush, Senator Rick Santorum, Bush2000, Bush-Cheney 2004 served on the senate staff of U.S. Senator Arlen Specter. Salena Zito has interviewed one on one Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director General Hayden, Homeland Security Director Chertoff, Attorney General Gonzales and First Lady Laura Bush. Zito spends a third of her time on the road interviewing legislators as well as current policy makers.

We'll try to ignore the conservative credentials when we read this news article about Governor Romney's visit yesterday to our fair city where Zito oh-so-subtly covers for him:

Mitt Romney repudiated President Obama’s attacks on his personal finances on Tuesday, calling it “a sad day when that is the course that the president takes.”

“I think it is beneath the dignity of the presidency for him to wage a campaign of personal attacks, and particularly when it is based on dishonesty,” Romney said in an interview with the Tribune-Review.

He referred to the Obama campaign’s two weeks of criticism of the former Massachusetts governor’s record at Bain Capital, a venture capital firm Romney founded in 1984 and headed until 1999, and his refusal to release more than two years’ worth of tax returns.

Did Romney actually leave Bain in 1999?  I hear there are some SEC documents that say otherwise.  But the  1999 date remains unchallenged by Zito.

And we'll also try to ignore Zito's conservative credentials in this other news article about Romney's fundraiser in North Huntington:

Mitt Romney sharpened his attacks on President Obama’s economic and health-care policies in appearances at a Westmoreland County business and a Pittsburgh fundraiser on Tuesday.

“He has to recognize that his policies have failed to get Americans work again,” Romney told a crowd of more than 1,000 people at Horizontal Wireline Services in North Huntingdon, which runs wires into gas and oil wells to help extract Marcellus shale gas. “I have an answer for him: liberal policies don’t make jobs.”

Later, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor attended a fundraiser at the Duquesne Club, Downtown, where tickets ranged from $2,500 for the reception to $50,000 for a private dinner. More than 300 tickets were sold.

In the piece Romney says Obama is out of touch.  I wonder how the construction of Romney's car elevator is going.

For the Romney campaign, they must be happy to know that they have such good friends in the news media.

Salena Zito And The Trib Are Spinning PA's Senatorial Race. It's Embarrassing (For Them) and Sad (For Everyone Else)

I thought that, for all of it's conservative misinformation on its editorial page, the Trib at least promised to have it's news division delivering straight news.

But I guess when it comes to Republican political candidates and Salena Zito, that's not exactly true.

And the sad part is that this has happened before - almost exactly two years ago.

Then it was about Mitt Romney.  This time, it's subtle but no less disappointing.  Zito's reporting on the ongoing political debate between Senator Pat Toomey and one of his democratic challengers, Joe Sestak over the former's record on Veterans' issues.  Let's see how Zito shades the argument ever so slightly in the direction of the candidate who (surprise surprise surprise!) just happens to be the republican candidate.

Let's start here, with the commercial:

Last month, Concerned Veterans for America aired a $1.5 million digital and television ad campaign praising Toomey. The group considers him “a leader in the fight to hold VA bureaucrats accountable for failing Pennsylvania veterans,” CEO Pete Hegseth said when announcing the ads, which ran through Aug. 25.

“There should not be such a thing as at-risk veterans. Sen. Pat Toomey is committed to making sure every veteran is provided with the health care and benefits they deserve,” Navy veteran Barb Doyne of Malvern, Chester County, said in the ad.

The nonprofit CVA, based in Arlington, Va., and funded in part by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, on its website says veterans and their families “have the potential to constitute a powerful force if they make their voices heard in the policy process.”

Interesting thing to note how Zito describes the connections between the Koch brothers and the CVA.  She writes simply that the "non-profit" CVA is funded "in part" by the brothers.  Funny thing, CVA CEO Pete Hegseth is quoted as saying that the Koch network "virtually created" the CVA and The Washington Post characterizes CVA's level of  Koch funding this way:

The group was funded almost entirely by TC4 in 2012.

 Propublica lets us know what TC4 is:

Fundraising by the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch supports a tangle of nonprofits, sometimes referred to as the Kochtopus, all aimed at advancing conservative causes. Two groups, the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce and TC4 Trust, handed out almost $264 million from mid-2011 to October 2012 to 30 other nonprofits.

So CVA was created by the Koch network and almost entirely funded by the Koch trust and yet Selena Zito hides it all behind an ambiguous "in part."

Gee, I wonder why.  And the CVA?  It may be non-profit but it's hardly non-partisan.  The Nation has more on Hegseth's speech:

Nevertheless, the Hegseth speech is an interesting window into how the Koch network operates: funding an ostensible advocacy group that is, in fact, a relentless political operation—and one that can, with the right situation to exploit, do everything from take out political attack ads to help craft legislation.

None of which is even hinted at in Zito's quietly appreciative prose.

But there's more to that ad, isn't there?  Yes, there is.  In her next paragraph Zito dutifully regifts the  quotation in the ad from Navy Veteran Barb Doyne.  Ever wonder who Barb Doyne is?

If you happen to take a look at the "Veteran's for Toomey" facebook page, you'll see that she's listed as a "Captain" of the Host Committee for a fundraiser for the Senator back in 2014.

Something else Salena Zito didn't tell you.

Then there's this.  Compare how Zito describes the CVA with what she does here:

VoteVets.org, which advocates to elect Democratic veterans to Congress, backed Sestak then and now. The Portland, Ore.-based group — which calls itself “the voice of America's 21st century patriots” — gets money from hedge fund manager and environmentalist Tom Steyer, as well as Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection and the United Steelworkers of America union, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

So many funding details!  Isn't it interesting how she found all these interesting the details on the side of the democrat but somehow, I guess, just couldn't find the time to do the exact same thing for the republican?

Oh, and she made a mistake (yea, we'll call it that) about Votevets.  Take a look at this from their own "candidates" page:

The mission of VoteVets.org Political Action Committee is to elect Veterans to public office; hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America’s 21st century service members, Veterans, and their families; and fully support our men and women in uniform. Though progressive, VoteVets PAC has endorsed both Democrats and Republicans. [Emphasis added.]

I'd say that that's a big mistake, wouldn't you?

But finally there's this.  After going through Sestak's arguments against Toomey, she finds another voice to settle the matter:

Joe Eastman, 64, a retired Navy lieutenant colonel in Philadelphia, said he respects Sestak's service to the country but finds his allegations that Toomey abandoned veterans in Washington unacceptable.

“His accusations are completely unfounded,” said Eastman, who spends time helping homeless veterans. “Anytime I have a problem or identified a growing concern, Senator Toomey's office has responded immediately.”

Since that's the only way she describes Eastman - as a "retired Navy lieutenant colonel" - you'd think he was unaffiliated with either candidate, right?

Wrong.  Take a look at this page and what it says about Joe Eastman:

He has served on the boards of the Philadelphia Senior Center, Nationalities Service Center, the Philadelphia Homeless Veterans Coalition which is an advisory body to the Mayor’s Office of Supportive Housing. He presently serves on the board of directors of The Veterans Group, Thank-A-Vet, and is a member of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s Military Academy Advisory Board advising the Senator on appointments to our nation’s service academies and serves as a veterans advisor to several Pennsylvania elected officials.

Don't you think that it would've been nice for that little bit of information to have been included in a "non-partisan" summing up the discussion?

I guess this is what we have to look forward to as the campaign unfolds and Selena Zito "reports" on it - more slanted coverage by the Tribune-Review news division.

Sad, embarrassing, and sad.

Salena Zito - IN THE NEWS!

I woke up this morning to an email from an astute reader who sent me a link to this HuffingtonPost piece.

In it, Ashley Feinberg does some solid reporting on this tweet-thread that you may have caught over the last few days:

So @salenazito blocked me and I couldn’t figure out why. All I’d done was ask her a simple question about a piece of reporting in her book. Then I ran into people in twitter threads who she’d done the same thing to.

— Inanimate Carbon Rod (@rod_inanimate) August 24, 2018

You should read it all if you haven't already. It is, as my astute reader pointed out to me, devastating.

Inanimate Carbon Rod, over the series of tweets, points out that some of the people Zito characterizes as Democrats or Independents who just happen to lo-o-o-ve Donald Trump just happen to be, you guessed it, solid Republicans.

Oopsie.

Feinberg got in contact with Zito (who still blocks moi on twitter, BTW) and posts some of her responses to these charges - they don't really help Zito's case, sad to say.

As of this moment, Feinberg's piece is on the front page of HuffingtonPost:

Why am I telling you this?

Because she's been doing this for years. Three years or so ago, Zito found a defender of Senator Pat Toomey and quoted him thusly:

Joe Eastman, 64, a retired Navy lieutenant colonel in Philadelphia, said he respects Sestak's service to the country but finds his allegations that Toomey abandoned veterans in Washington unacceptable.

“His accusations are completely unfounded,” said Eastman, who spends time helping homeless veterans. “Anytime I have a problem or identified a growing concern, Senator Toomey's office has responded immediately.”

As an aside, let me say that it's been pointed out that Zito (and her editors) made a huge error in characterizing Eastman's Naval career as there are no lieutenant colonels in the Navy. That's an Army/Marine Corp/Air Force rank.

It's also besides the point for this argument.

Here's the point: after a little digging I found that:

[Eastman] has served on the boards of the Philadelphia Senior Center, Nationalities Service Center, the Philadelphia Homeless Veterans Coalition which is an advisory body to the Mayor’s Office of Supportive Housing. He presently serves on the board of directors of The Veterans Group, Thank-A-Vet, and is a member of U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey’s Military Academy Advisory Board advising the Senator on appointments to our nation’s service academies and serves as a veterans advisor to several Pennsylvania elected officials. [Emphasis from my original blog post]

It was a rather important detail that Selena Zito decided you didn't need to know when describing a critic of Admiral Joe Sestak.

She's been doing this for years.

And now everyone who reads HuffingtonPost knows it.

Salena Zito and The Dixiecrats

Let's start, without comment, with something the Salena Zito of the Tribune-Review wrote.  Give her the first word, as it were, and then fill in the blanks:

Grantham, 47, reflects the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948 during a convention battle between civil-righters and Dixiecrat states'-righters. The Republican Party really didn't capitalize on that until 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower won some Southern states.

Richard Nixon developed the strategy of competing in the Deep South -- then, typically barren land for Republicans. While his results were mixed, his brilliant move marked the start of the South turning on Democrats.

Now, let's take a look at the Dixiecrat's party platform in 1948 - if only to see just what flavor of "states'-rights" it was.  There certainly won't be much controversy with how the platform begins:

- 1 -

We believe that the Constitution of the United States is the greatest charter of human liberty ever conceived by the mind of man.

- 2 -

We oppose all efforts to invade or destroy the rights guaranteed by it to every citizen of this republic.

- 3 -

We stand for social and economic justice, which, we believe can be guaranteed to all citizens only by a strict adherence to our Constitution and the avoidance of any invasion or destruction of the constitutional rights of the states and individuals. We oppose the totallitaran, centralized bureaucratic government and the police nation called for by the platforms adopted by the Democratic and Republican Conventions.

Ok, maybe that last paragraph has a bit more of an edge to it than we're used to seeing, but on the other hand, who would have been in favor of a "totalitarian, centralized bureaucratic government" then? Or now, for that matter?  I think that's what you'd call a "straw man" argument.

It's in the next three sections where the Dixiecrat reality becomes strikingly obvious:

- 4 -

We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race; the constitutional right to choose one's associates; to accept private employment without governmental interference, and to learn one's living in any lawful way. We oppose the elimination of segregation, the repeal of miscegenation statutes, the control of private employment by Federal bureaucrats called for by the misnamed civil rights program. We favor home-rule, local self-government and a minimum interference with individual rights.

- 5 -

We oppose and condemn the action of the Democratic Convention in sponsoring a civil rights program calling for the elimination of segregation, social equality by Federal fiatt, regulations of private employment practices, voting, and local law enforcement.

- 6 -

We affirm that the effective enforcement of such a program would be utterly destructive of the social, economic and political life of the Southern people, and of other localities in which there may be differences in race, creed or national orgin in appreciable numbers.

This is what Salena Zito boiled down into the simple and yet oh so misleading phrase "states'-righters."  Take a look again at what those Dixiecrats were against:

• Desegregation
• Interracial marriage
• Race-neutral employment and voting opportunities

In short, basic civil rights for African-Americans.  That's the tradition of "the once-proud Southern white Democrats that the party began bleeding in 1948" to the Republican Party.  And this isn't me saying it, it's an expert Zito herself quotes:

"As a new generation developed, the people who were conservative Democrats and Dixiecrats mostly became Republicans," explained Bert Rockman, Purdue University political science professor.

It wasn't until after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that the South turned solidly against the Democratic Party - at a moment, as we're told:

When Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he told aide Bill Moyers that Democrats would face a backlash from the white Southerners who had been part of the Democratic coalition Franklin Roosevelt forged. "We have lost the South for a generation," he warned.

Now go back to what Zito wrote, think about all that you read above.  Who left the Democratic Party?  And where did they go?  Now imagine what Zito wanted you to think.

Now ask yourself: How different are those two ideas?

On That Gettysburg Snub - With A Local Connection!

Much has been written in the last few days about President Obama and his "snubbing" of the ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.  CNN's Ashley Killough even posted this analysis of that decision:

As Pennsylvania gears up to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address on Tuesday, one prominent Abraham Lincoln fan won't be in attendance: President Barack Obama.

The National Park Service announced a few weeks ago the President won't be part of the activities commemorating the historic speech, and critics have since assailed Obama for skipping the event.

And who's the first critic assailing Obama?  The Trib's own Selena Zito:

"It would be an occasion for him to honor a crucial time in our past, to create a historical bridge to today," Salena Zito, a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review staff writer, wrote in a column.

"His dismissal of the request shows a man so detached from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him, that it is unspeakable in its audacity," Zito added. "Ask almost any person in this historic town; even his most ardent supporters here are stunned." [Emphasis added.]

Missing, of course, from Zito's column is any sort of historical context - an omission also found in some of the regular news coverage of the event at the Trib.  Here's Mike Wereschagin:

Several of the new citizens said they'd been told President Obama would attend the ceremony. Instead, a National Park Ranger read a brief speech from the president and a message he recorded for the 16 new citizens was played.

Obama's decision not to appear “made him look bad,” said Mike Wood, 39, of Chesterfield, Mich. He should have come “just to show his respect,” said Wood, a re-enactor with the 7th Michigan Cavalry and author of the nonfiction Civil War book “Tuebor.”

And what was this omission of context?  Take a look:

But Obama's decision not to attend the Gettysburg commemoration ceremony is typical for a sitting president. President Reagan did not attend the 125th commemoration of the Gettysburg Address - in fact, Reagan never visited Gettysburg during his tenure in office. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton also never visited the battlefield as president, and President George W. Bush toured the site in 2008, but did not speak or attend a commemoration ceremony. In fact, according to Hanover, Pennsylvania's local paper, The Evening Sun, William Howard Taft was the only sitting president to ever visit the site on the anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

That's right - Ronald Wilson Reagan never visited Gettysburg during his entire tenure in office and didn't attend the 125th commemoration of the speech.

Can we get that Civil War re-enactor declare that it made Reagan "look bad" by not showing?  Or  how it shows Reagan's disrespect?  Can we get Selena Zito to go on record saying that Reagan's unspeakably audacious failure to attend the 125th commemoration shows his detachment from the duty of history, from the men who served in the White House before him?

Yea, I didn't think so either.

Susquehanna Polling, Selena Zito And The Tribune-Review

There are a few things to keep in mind about Selena Zito's piece Monday about some recent poll data.

First thing to note is how long it takes (and what she writes in the mean time) for her to get to the bad news about the Republican-controlled Congress:

No matter how you frame it, Americans are dissatisfied with Congress and President Obama, divisional politics and the direction the country is going.

“I have got a lot of uncertainty towards both sides with how they govern once they get to Washington,” said Mike Delauder of Garrett, Ind. “I am sure it is a difficult job, and I don't doubt that they try hard, but when they get stuck on party-line politics, it is incredibly frustrating because nothing gets done.”

Sixty percent of those surveyed nationwide for the Tribune-Review by Harrisburg-based Susquehanna Polling and Research think the country is heading in the wrong direction. Sixty-one percent believe the country is more divided than ever and that the division will worsen.

Fifty-four percent are unhappy with Obama's job performance, and a whopping 73 percent disapprove of Congress's performance. [Emphasis added.]

And that's the only mention of how much more, according to this poll, Americans are dissatisfied with the (Republican) Congress than with the (Democratic) President.

Isn't that interesting?

Also we should note the polling company itself: Susquehanna Polling and Research.  Zito offers no description other than "Harrisburg-based."  How do they describe themselves?

This way:

Pennsylvania-based Susquehanna Polling and Research (SP&R) is a leading survey research and political polling firm for both candidates for public office (GOP only)...

Oh, so it's a Republican polling firm!

Funny how conservative columnist Selena Zito writing for the conservative Tribune-Review fails to mention that.

But even if they are a Republican polling firm, they could still be accurate right?  There's no reason to think that one automatically discounts the other, right?

So how did they do in, say, the last Presidential Election?

Take a look:

President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney entered the final days of the presidential race tied in a state that the campaigns only recently began contesting, a Tribune-Review poll shows.

The poll showed the race for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes locked up at 47 percent in its final week. Romney was scheduled to campaign in the Philadelphia area on Sunday, and former President Bill Clinton planned to stump for Obama on Monday. The campaigns have begun to saturate the airwaves with millions of dollars in presidential advertising.

“They're both in here because of exactly what you're seeing” in this poll, said Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling & Research, which surveyed 800 likely voters Oct. 29-31. Most of the interviews occurred after Hurricane Sandy inundated Eastern and Central Pennsylvania. The poll's error margin is 3.46 percentage points.

In reality, Obama won by a little more than 5 percentage points.

And that's not the only miscalculation on the part of Susquehanna in the 2012 election.  Take a look:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee consistently had a more upbeat assessment of races in North Dakota and Montana, among others, than their Democratic counterparts. One GOP poll even showed Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock holding even with his opponent, even as public polls showed the embattled Republican hemorrhaging support. A Republican poll taken by Susquehanna Polling and Research showed Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith leading Democratic Sen. Bob Casey by 2 points a few weeks before the election; Casey won by 9 points. [Emphasis added.]

So, are the numbers from Susquehanna Polling and Research really as trustworthy as Zito would like us to believe?  Give the source of the article, the source of the numbers and some recent history, I'd vote no.

But that's just me.

The Bishops Speak...

And guess who they want Catholics to vote for (without actually saying it, nudge-nudge wink-wink)?

From Selena Zito at the Trib:

Roman Catholic bishops in Pennsylvania are urging the faithful to remember the church’s teachings on marriage, education and religious liberty when voting on Tuesday, calling this presidential election a “historical challenge.”

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference chose All Saints’ Day to issue its election statement reminding Catholics that “most urgent political issues — ranging from the economy, immigration and abortion to global security — raise profoundly moral questions.”

“Because politics is the place where competing moral visions of a society meet and struggle, our democracy depends on people of conviction fighting for what they believe in the public square, yet doing so with an abiding respect for one another,” the bishops said.

Here's the statement.

And even though this is Zito is political reporter here, Zito the conservative columnist just can't resist the conservative spin:

The bishops warned against efforts to redefine the nature of marriage, to exclude parental authority in school choice, to encroach upon Catholic health care and social services and to erode religious liberty — an apparent reference to a Health and Human Services mandate on contraceptives and federal funding for abortion in Obamacare. [Emphasis added.]

There is no federal funding for abortion (except for rape and incest and when the life of the mother is in danger) - the Hyde Amendment has guaranteed that for decades.

And if there's any question whether federal funds can be used in Obamacare, there's an Executive Order that answers that question:

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly created health insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. 300a-7, and the Weldon Amendment, section 508(d)(1) of Public Law 111-8) remain intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.

How could political reporter Selena Zito not know this?  And if she does, then it's simply dishonest to write what she wrote.  (Again, which is it with these folks at the Trib?  Incompetence or dishonesty?)

But let's move on to the Bishops' statement.  When they write:

Religious liberty itself – “our first, most cherished freedom” – is no longer secure. At first glance, this may seem otherwise because religious freedom is so deeply ingrained in our national history. But democracy has no special immunity to losing its soul by little steps. As Alexis de Tocqueville, the great chronicler of early American democracy, observed more than 150 years ago, “it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life” – because the more the state provides, the more it inevitably controls.

Events have proven this true. In recent years a pattern of legislative and judicial actions has emerged in our country that undermines religious liberty and jeopardizes the contributions of religious bodies in the public realm. Government policies that seek to impose morally repugnant services on religiously affiliated medical providers...

And:

Consider today’s aggressive efforts to redefine the nature of marriage, to exclude parental authority in the choice of the best education for their children, and to force Catholic healthcare and social services to end their ministries unless they violate their religious identities through mandated support of practices contrary to the very sanctity of human life. [Emphasis added.]

Who do you think they want Catholics to support?  Notice how they framed the issue.  Now look at reality.

What's being discussed here is not The Church being forced to "end their ministries" in anyway.  It's about access to insurance (that they're not paying for) for women (who may or may not be Catholic but who work for a Catholic institution) who want contraceptives.  That's what the bishops oppose.  And in doing so, they're imposing their own faith in the name of religious liberty.

Amazing how faith, yet again, gets in the way of reality.

Follow-Up On Joe Sestak's Walk Across The State

This weekend, I wrote about one of Joe Sestak's last stops on his walk across Pennsylvania.

In it there was this passage:

Yesterday's discussion was with a dozen or so potential supporters. Though I have to add that Sestak, with a sincere grin, also welcomed to the room a guy named Ollie, who he said was the tracker assigned to cover the event by the Toomey campaign. Nice guy - after the event, he and I joked about how it was snowing outside.

Unfortunately, this is a detail left incompletely contextualized.

The point being that once you find out who Ollie is, you find out a whole lot more what's going on.

Take a look at this from Philly.com:

Around 10:20, on the side of Route 30, Sestak spots a lanky young man pointing a video camera. It's Oliver Kline, a tracker hired by the conservative group America Rising.

Yep, that would be Ollie.

A paragraph or two later there's this:

A few weeks back in Bucks County, the candidate and his paid political stalker worked together to push a pickup truck out of the snow. Sestak's team posted the video on YouTube. It ends with the Democrat slapping a high-five with the Republican hired to record damaging video.

Here's the video if you wanna see it:


As Sestak said of Ollie:

To Sestak, it's an honor that the GOP is after him.

"He's a good kid," Sestak says. "He's just got a job to do."

All true.  But the job is working for America Rising.

So, what's America Rising?

Luckily, our good friend Selena Zito has a piece in today's Tribune-Review all about it:

The PAC, 2 years old this month, is in the business of marking everything Democratic candidates do as the 2016 presidential election approaches, so Republicans don't get outflanked by outside opposition research groups, as they did in 2012.

“The Democrats were a lot more nimble at using outside groups,” Matt Rhoades, one of America Rising's founders, told the Tribune-Review in the organization's offices near a subway stop outside Washington.

Rhoades 40, who managed Mitt Romney's failed presidential campaign in 2012, pointed to American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic opposition research group that caught GOP candidates in awkward moments and matched rhetoric from their speeches against their voting records.

As for funding, Zito reports:

With partners Joe Pounder and Tim Miller, he established America Rising in March 2013. Its money comes from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, American Crossroads, the American Action Network and other clients.

But she leaves out something rather important, given all the Romney connections to Matt Rhoades.

OpenSecrets reports that, for the 2014 election cycle Amerca Rising received $400,000 from an organization called "Restore Our Future."

"Restore our Future," in turn, was a SuperPAC formed to support Romney's 2012 presidential campaign - the campaign that Matt Rhoades ran.

And that would be the same Romney campaign that Selena Zito let get away with a lie in 2012.  And now all that Romney "Super PAC" money's supporting the Opposition Research firm for whom Selena Zito just wrote some very nice words.

Good to know who's who and what's what this go-round.

..And They Keep Doing It

Back in August, I posted some observations/criticisms about some of the political news coverage I found at Richard Mellon Scaife's Tribune-Review.

I wrote then that Brill's Content, a now defunct political news site, asserted in 2001 that the political coverage over at the Trib was skewed and it's " information laundered" to suit Scaife's viewpoints.  Financial connections between the paper's owner and its sources were routinely omitted and its readers were being mislead about a story's credibility.  I added that that practice still seems to be taking place.

And now there's this piece by Selena Zito in Today's paper about Senator Pat Toomey.  Where Brad Bumstead ignored his boss's financial connections to the Club For Growth and Senator Toomey, Zito just simply omits any connection between Toomey and the Scaife-funded Club For Growth.

If you don't think this is a big deal, then ask yourself: How would my opinion of the piece change had Zito chosen to tell me that her boss had both donated to the campaign of the Senator she was interviewing AND to the conservative think tank he once headed?

Now do you see?

Connellsville Lawyers Up

In the protracted agitation surrounding the unconstitutional placement of the 10 Commandments on school grounds in Connellsville, PA, there's some news:

Connellsville Area School Board members agreed on Wednesday night to appoint Andrews and Price LLC of Pittsburgh as special legal counsel in the legal battle over the Ten Commandments monument located near Connellsville Junior High.

They've lawyered up.

And I think they got some bad advice:

While there were a few dozen people who attended the board meeting to show support for the monument, Jeff Zito of Apollo was the only individual who spoke during public comment.

Zito told board members he read of the issue in the newspaper and was facing the same issue in New Kensington, which is near his hometown.

“You might say it’s just a monument, but if you let a secular organization win in our own hometown, what will happen when they come back again — and they will,” Zito said.

“I’m here in the opposition of the removal of the Ten Commandments monument.

“If you decide to fight and allow them to take you to court, realize that these battles have been won before,” he added.

Um, I don't think they have (but I could be wrong).  I'd think that since the Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that posting the Ten Commandments in a public school has no secular legislative purpose and therefore violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, these battles are pretty much pointless.  Expensive and pointless.

But what do I know?  I'm not a lawyer.

Selena Covers (For) Romney. Again.

From today's Tribune-Review:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rallied supporters in this bellwether state on Tuesday by chastising President Obama for policies that cripple America’s energy industry and the families and small businesses whose livelihoods depend on fuel producers.

“His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that?” Romney told a cheering crowd of about 2,600 people in the village of Beallsville, where 70 miners from American Energy Corp.’s Century Mine joined him onstage. “This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he’s done, and his policies over the last three-and-a-half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office.”

What a silly thing to say, coal more dangerous than terrorists??  What was Joe thinking?

Except he didn't actually say that.  In fact, when you look at the context (which Trib conservative columnist Selena Zito failed to do here) you'll find something entirely different.

CBS did their homework and has a description of what Biden actually said:

Campaigning in rural coal country, Mitt Romney on Tuesday revived a controversial five-year-old comment from Vice President Joe Biden as evidence that the Obama administration is insufficiently committed to energy from coal.

In a 2007 interview on HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, Biden, then a 2008 presidential candidate, was asked which is more likely to contribute to Americans' deaths - air pollution from coal, high-fructose corn syrup or a terrorist attack. Biden responded: "Air that has too much coal in it, corn syrup next, then a terrorist attack. But that is not in any way to diminish the fact that a terrorist attack is real. It is not an existential threat to bringing down the country, but it does have the capacity, still, to kill thousands of people. But hundreds of thousands of people die and their lives are shortened because of coal plants, coal-fired plants and because of corn syrup." [emphasis added.]

Addressing a crowd in Beallsville, Romney attacked President Obama's energy policies and added, "His vice president said coal is more dangerous than terrorists. Can you imagine that? This tells you precisely what he actually feels and what he's done and his policies over the last three and a half years have put in place the very vision he had when he was running for office."

See?  The question Biden was answering is about which causes more damage not which is more dangerous.

What's happening here is that Romney misquoted Biden and Zito (who should know better)- let him get away with it.   CBS had the time to check, why didn't she?  We've seen this a few times (here and here) and I am beginning to sense a pattern.  Aren't you?

Setting aside the corn syrup part - and only because it's not a part of Romney's misquote - we should then be asking ourselves, "Is Biden telling the truth?  Does coal pollution kill more people than terrorism?"

Um, yea.  Take a look at this 2004 study from the Clean Air Task Force.  From the summary:

Fine particle pollution from U.S. power plants cuts short the lives of nearly 24,000 people each year, including 2800 from lung cancer.

So Romney misquoted and Zito failed to correct him.

This is how the Trib will be covering the Romney campaign.  Get used to it.

Zito Shills For The Romney Campaign. Again.

And remember, this is one of the people the Trib's news division has covering the Romney campaign.

She begins her opinion column with a bit of Romney-dishonesty:

Mitt Romney was fired up.

“The president actually said, if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen.” He paused and threw his hands up before adding: “Really?”

Ah, Selena. But that's not all the president said, did he?  As the good book says "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:32).  To see the truth, we have to take a look at what the president actually said.  There are two things to keep in mind here - how Romney lies about it and then how Selena Zito lets him get away with it.

The current Romney lie was snipped from a campaign speech in Roanoke Virginia:

[L]ook, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business -- you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. [emphasis added]

Now go back and look at how Romney characterized it.  Take a look at the middle paragraph.  Obama was
talking about various forms of infrastructure (roads, bridges, the internet), pointing out that a business' success is built upon the infrastructure that someone else built.

And yet, Romney, by snipping out the context, makes it sound as though Obama said that someone else built the successful business.  A lie.

Whatever the rhetorical distance you find between the truth and Romney's spin on it, is exactly the rhetorical distance that Zito allowed him to have - by not correcting him.

And this is a reporter that the Tribune-Review sends to cover the Romney campaign.

Zito And The Trib, Helping Out When They Can

Take a look at Salena Zito's first two paragraphs from this morning.  This isn't a column of hers, by the way.  If its URL is to be believed, it's in the Trib's "News" division.  So it's un-opinionated news:

FreedomWorks, a Tea Party organization, is expected today to endorse a former Senate staffer and researcher with the conservative Heritage Foundation in the 18th District congressional race.

Evan Feinberg, 27, of Upper St. Clair is challenging Rep. Tim Murphy in the GOP primary on April 24.

There are two names you should notice in that first paragraph; FreedomWorks and Heritage Foundation.  Couple that with the Braintrust's editorial stance on Murphy and you'll see two things;

• The Trib's not a fan of Murphy (neither am I, but that's beside the point)
• Their Trib's editorial policy is oh-so-conveniently reflected in their "news" coverage.  Again

Selena Zito Does It Again.

Take a look at this "straight news" piece from a few days ago:

The conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity will begin airing ads on Wednesday in Pennsylvania and 10 other states, spending $6.7 million on a weeklong TV buy to criticize President Obama for the nation’s escalating debt.

And here's how she characterizes the ad:

The 30-second ad, airing on Pittsburgh stations WPXI, KDKA and WTAE, shows a clip from a 2009 NBC interview with Obama in which the president pledged to cut the deficit by half by the end of his first term in office.

“I will be held accountable,” Obama said at the time. “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.” The ad concludes with a rolling debt counter and urges voters: “Let’s make this a one-term proposition on Nov. 6.”

This is the ad she's talking about:


By the way, for those checking the details on the "I will be held accountable" part, (and you might want to pay attention to this, Salena) Obama was not talking about cutting the deficit when he made that statement.  It's two separate issues sewed together by our partisan friends at AFP.  ABC has already fact-checked the "one term proposition" part.  Take a look:

But while there is no doubt the U.S. economy continues to struggle, an examination of the context of Obama’s 2009 comments to NBC’s Matt Lauer suggests his “proposition” might not have been as sweeping as Republicans make it out to be.

Obama was responding to specific questions about the Troubled Asset Relief Program and whether its economic benefits would merit the costs, then estimated at $700 billion.

“At some point will you say, ‘Wait a minute, we’ve spent this amount of money. We’re not seeing the results. We’ve got to change course dramatically?’” Lauer asked Obama.

“Look, I’m at the start of my administration. One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years. And, you know, a year from now I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress,” Obama said. “But there’s still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”

Not only did AFP cobble together the "deficit" part with the "accountable" part, they omitted the "Tarp" part, but they sliced out some more context from Obama's answer.  You can read the full transcript here.

And Selena Zito's letting them get away with it.

But that's not all - guess what else she left out?

Ever wonder where Americans for Prosperity came from?  Koch Industries has an answer:

In 1984, Dr. Richard Fink, Charles Koch and David Koch and Jay Humphreys co-founded Citizens for a Sound Economy and Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation. Over time the participants in CSE and the CSE Foundation developed different visions. In 2004, CSE became FreedomWorks and the CSE Foundation was renamed Americans for Prosperity Foundation. AFP Foundation created a 501(c)(4) organization, Americans for Prosperity. AFP and AFP Foundation have grown to more than 2 million members in all 50 states and 34 state chapters and affiliates.

And guess, just guess who also gave a ton of money to Citizens for A Sound Economy Foundation:

• $175,000 in 2001
• $175,000 in 2002
• $175,000 in 2003

That's right, her boss Richard Mellon Scaife.

From A VERY Well Placed Source - News About The Tribune-Review Newsroom

An astute reader emailed this in with some gossip regarding our friends at the Tribune-Review.

My astute source wrote:

McNickle was among those taking the latest round of buyouts. The Trib has basically emptied it's newsroom and management plans to fold the Pittsburgh operation back into the mother ship in Greensburg.

Frank Craig and Jim Cuddy got a push out the door and the sports editor was flat-out removed.

They had meetings with the few veterans they planned to keep. Colin was not invited. It got so testy that he declined to attend an editorial board interview with Trump Junior last week. Last Sunday's Trib contained no editorials.

Among the departures is Carl Prine, Mike Wereschagin, Salena Zito, Brad Bumsted and all but three of their photographers. I'm waiting to see if Colin has a farewell column.

Received word today that Eric Heyl, the spectacularly mediocre columnist, also took the buyout. Everyone has concluded that the company will file a WARN notice in October.

Consensus inside the D.L. Clark Building: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review is not long for this world.

Wow.  I can't begin to comprehend this new journalistic reality.

• Colin McNickle, gone.
• Eric Heyl, gone.
• Salena Zito, gone.

But if the Trib's not long for this world, what am I gonna do about their continual climate denial?

Follow The Money - PATownhall

A week or so ago, I stumbled across this website.  It's "PaTownHall - Pennsylvania's marketplace of ideas" and it describes itself as:

PA Town Hall is a cooperative project involving over 20 center/right organizations and columnists from throughout Pennsylvania. It is a "one stop shop" for readers to view the latest policy papers, news releases, newsletters, polls, blogs and columns as well as listen to radio programs produced by participating organizations.

The site piqued my curiosity, to say the least.  Where did it come from?  Who hosts it?  Who's paying for it?  And finally, HOW MUCH SCAIFE MONEY IS ENTWINED IN THE PROJECT?

So let's follow the money.

On the "About" page we learn that:

PA Town Hall is owned and operated by the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc. The Lincoln Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit educational foundation based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The mission statement of the Lincoln Institute commits the organization to "the conduct of an extensive public information and educational program designed to foster federal and state public policy based upon traditional American values."

Ah, The Lincoln Institute.  According to the Bridgeproject, the Institute has received overall $1.428 million dollars over the last 20 or so years - 68% of which ($980,000) came from the Scaife controlled Allegheny Foundation.

But what about those "20 center/right organizations" that make up the project?

Let's take a look.  Here's the page titled "Member Groups".  Alot of the list is made up of individuals, so let's set them aside and just concentrate on the some of groups on the "Member Group" page that have received Scaife funding (all info from the BridgeProject):

• Allegheny Institute: $6.484 million total, 89% ($5.8 million) from Scaife foundations
• Commonwealth Foundation: $7.523 million total, 35% ($2.667 million) from Scaife foundations
• Foundation for Individual Rights in Education: $9.865 million total 14.7% ($1.45 million) from Scaife foundations

And so on.  I note that our good friend Salena Zito is also on the "Member Groups" list.  She's a staff writer and editorial columnist for the Tribune-Review

Here's a thought experiment: What would PATownhall look like had it never received 68% of it's foundation funding from the Scaife Foundations?  What would the political geography of the state look like without all that money coming from those three sources all controlled (until recently, of course) by one very rich white guy?

Here's a couple more: The next time Salena Zito mentions anyone else (individual or organization) on the PA Townhall "Member Group" (for example Senator Toomey) will she, in the spirit of full disclosure, mention their common membership on that list?  

Next time Lowman Henry is so lovingly profiled by the Tribune-Review, will they point out that their former owner shuttled hundreds of thousands of dollars Henry's way to fund the Lincoln Institute?

Follow the money.

When Scaife News Sources Collide

First there's the Scaife-Funded Heritage Foundation on the "connection" between the killing of Osama bin Laden and the "enhanced interrogations" of the Bush Administration:

A senior official who briefed the press early this morning explained that “detainees in the post-9/11 period flagged for us individuals who may have been providing direct support to bin Laden and his deputy, [Ayman al-] Zawahiri, after their escape from Afghanistan.”

He continued: “One courier in particular had our constant attention. Detainees gave us his nom de guerre, or his nickname, and identified him as both a protégé of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of September 11, and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the former number three of al-Qaeda who was captured in 2005.” The United States obtained this information four years ago, the official stated.

One more crucial fact: According to the “detainees” (note the plural), this individual was “one of the few al-Qaeda couriers trusted by bin Laden.”

Think about that: This lead was developed during the Bush Administration, most likely from al-Qaeda associates picked up and transferred to Guantanamo and subject to interrogations that critics have repeatedly deemed to be pointless in terms of intelligence value. Whether these detainees remain at Guantanamo is an open question.

And then, a paragraph later:

For years, we have heard that strategic interrogation of detainees at Guantanamo was worthless, that the information is (at best) stale and almost certainly of dubious reliability. The most strident call such interrogations illegal.

So, yes. Torture led to the intel that led to the bullets that killed Osama bin Laden.

Then there's Salena Zito, columnist at the Scaife-owned Tribune-Review:

Commandos killed bin Laden in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that began with the intelligence community identifying his courier last year and tracking his movements in the months leading up to Sunday.

In the past decade, critics assailed the CIA for not connecting the dots before the 9/11 terror attacks, for failing to capture bin Laden and for using enhanced interrogation techniques.

Remember, the "enhanced interrogation" was water boarding. Though Zito is unsure what connection there is between Abbottabad and waterboarding:

It is unclear whether interrogations played a role in identifying the bin Laden courier whose trail led to the terror leader's door.

Then there's the Scaife-owned Newsmax, interviewing none other than Don Rumsfeld himself:

Asked if harsh interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay played a role in obtaining intelligence on bin Laden’s whereabouts, Rumsfeld declares: “First of all, no one was waterboarded at Guantanamo Bay. That’s a myth that’s been perpetrated around the country by critics.

“The United States Department of Defense did not do waterboarding for interrogation purposes to anyone. It is true that some information that came from normal interrogation approaches at Guantanamo did lead to information that was beneficial in this instance. But it was not harsh treatment and it was not waterboarding.”

So which is it? Waterboarding led to Abbottabad or didn't it? They really should get their stories straight.

Waterboarding's still illegal, though.

Rick Santorum - via the Trib

Salena Zito has a pair of articles in today's Tribune Review on our favorite soon-to-be former Senator, Rick Santorum (God, I LOVED typing that!). One is an interview and the other a summary of the interview.

In the interview Rick does have some interesting things to say - and if you peer between the lines a LOT of interesting things to say. Case in point:

Trib: Is there any scenario in which you would consider running for president in 2008?

Santorum: For the year 2008 the answer is, I am not going to be running.

Take a close look. Now closer. He only ruled out running in 2008. Pretty much means we'll see a Rick Santorum campaign someplace in maybe about three years or so, doesn't it?

Some of the questions bordered on softball. Take a look at the first one:

Trib: Did you ever envision when you first ran for Congress, and stood on the corners of Cochran and Washington Roads in Mount Lebanon with your homemade signs, that your career would lead you to a final-act speech on the growing threat of Islamic fascism?

It really only makes sense if one agrees that there is a "growing threat of Islamic fascism." (That, of course, is a separate issue.) The interviewer and interviewee have to already agree on the concept before the question can be answered. Kind of frames the rest of the interview, don't it?.

Though Zito does get in something challenging:

Trib: Any plans to move back to Pennsylvania? Or will your future keep you close to the Washington Beltway?

Santorum: I am in the process of figuring that all out. I will make some decision here in the next few weeks.

Wait a sec. The question implies that Rick doesn't live in Pennsylvania. What's up with that? What happened to all that stuff during the campaign about his "legal residence" being in Penn Hills? And could there be a more tepid response?

Here's Rick on the media:

Trib: The media -- how do you think they have played a role in the public's perception of the threat of Islamic fascism, the effects of the war in Iraq?

Santorum: I gave a speech at the Valley Forge Military Academy a little over a year ago, and I talked about the role of the media -- I was very critical of them.

They felt it was their obligation to go out every day and report as they do. And they report death- as I say, "one side of the story." I understand why they do it, and I am not saying that they don't have to do it.

But understand, by doing so, all you do is accomplish exactly what the terrorists want you to do, which is to weary the American public of this war -- and eventually cause us to stop fighting it. That is the end result of what we are doing.

I have always said that if World War II was covered like this war, I really, very seriously doubt that we would have ever won that war. Certainly, we might have been willing, when the losses got so high, to negotiate a compromise or negotiate some sort of surrender. The death that went on -- I always remind people that we lost more people in a couple of hours on D-Day that we have in the entire war (in Iraq).

The amount of death and destruction that occurred in the previous wars, under the current media coverage, would not have tolerated by the American public.

The bottom line is, the media -- and I am not saying that they are intending to do this -- but simply by what they are doing, without question, it is aiding the terrorists and their objective.

And that may just simply be the function of a free press in a democratic society. ... I would argue that covering the bad things that are going on Iraq, and not covering the greater complexities that I have talked about in my speeches and highlighting the threat, is a disservice to the American public. And, I think, will have far-reaching consequences.

Let's take it apart section by section:

I gave a speech at the Valley Forge Military Academy a little over a year ago, and I talked about the role of the media -- I was very critical of them.

They felt it was their obligation to go out every day and report as they do. And they report death- as I say, "one side of the story." I understand why they do it, and I am not saying that they don't have to do it.

But understand, by doing so, all you do is accomplish exactly what the terrorists want you to do, which is to weary the American public of this war -- and eventually cause us to stop fighting it. That is the end result of what we are doing.

So by reporting the deaths in Iraq, the media is helping the terrorists.

I have always said that if World War II was covered like this war, I really, very seriously doubt that we would have ever won that war. Certainly, we might have been willing, when the losses got so high, to negotiate a compromise or negotiate some sort of surrender. The death that went on -- I always remind people that we lost more people in a couple of hours on D-Day that we have in the entire war (in Iraq).

That last part might not be accurate. From the D-Day Museum website:

How many Allied and German casualties were there on D-Day, and in the Battle of Normandy?

“Casualties” refers to all losses suffered by the armed forces: killed, wounded, missing in action (meaning that their bodies were not found) and prisoners of war. There is no "official" casualty figure for D-Day. Under the circumstances, accurate record keeping was very difficult. For example, some troops who were listed as missing may actually have landed in the wrong place, and have rejoined their parent unit only later.

In April and May 1944, the Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft in operations which paved the way for D-Day.

Total Allied casualties on D-Day are estimated at 10,000, including 2500 dead. British casualties on D-Day have been estimated at approximately 2700. The Canadians lost 946 casualties. The US forces lost 6603 men. Note that the casualty figures for smaller units do not always add up to equal these overall figures exactly, however (this simply reflects the problems of obtaining accurate casualty statistics). [Italics added]

And US casualties so far in Iraq? As of today (1219/06): 2950 dead and 46,880 "non mortal casualties." To be sure, the numbers will go up.

But given that the accuracy of all the D-Day numbers is hazy, I won't hold Rick to this. But let's assume for the sake of the argument that Rick is correct. That more US Servicemen died in a "couple of hours" on D-Day than were killed in the 4 years of Bush's war. So what? More people die in car accidents on the nation's roads. Does that make an illegal war legal? Does that suddenly make what was a meaningless death a meaningful one?

The amount of death and destruction that occurred in the previous wars, under the current media coverage, would not have tolerated by the American public.

The bottom line is, the media -- and I am not saying that they are intending to do this -- but simply by what they are doing, without question, it is aiding the terrorists and their objective.

And that may just simply be the function of a free press in a democratic society. ... I would argue that covering the bad things that are going on Iraq, and not covering the greater complexities that I have talked about in my speeches and highlighting the threat, is a disservice to the American public. And, I think, will have far-reaching consequences.

So to sum up. The media, though Rick is careful to say that he doesn't think it's intentional, is aiding the terrorists simply by reporting what they see. If only they'd parrot more of the nonsense that the administration (and Rick Santorum) has been saying over the last few years, the war would be over and we would have won it. Why can't the media just show us nice pictures of bunnies and sunsets? That way, the serious, important people can finish the job with no pesky interference from the public.

Yea, that's it. The media's fault and the public's fault for not buying that tripe.

Yes, But Is It TRUE?

I realize the conservative paper in town has to do something to try to put the best spin on last night's awful Romney debate performance, but this piece by Mike Wereschagin and Salena Zito shows the problem with the "he said/he said" school of "objective" journalism.

In not doing any real fact checking, Mike and Salena let Romney off the hook.  Perhaps that was the point.

The wrote:

“I think (Iran’s leaders) saw weakness where they had expected to find American strength,” Romney said. He revived his charge that Obama embarked on “an apology tour” around the world.

“Nothing Gov. Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing,” Obama said.

Yes, but is it true?  They don't say.

Did the President go on an "apology tour" or not?  Nothing is gained by going "he said/he said" - those who think he did will disagree with Obama and those who think he didn't will disagree with Romney.

In reality, there was no apology tour.

From CNN:

Romney's claim is false. The president has mentioned past U.S. mistakes and flaws during speeches about the larger issues of building bridges to other countries. But he has never apologized or gone on an "apology tour."

Washington Post:

The claim that Obama repeatedly has apologized for the United States is not borne out by the facts, especially if his full quotes are viewed in context.

Obama often was trying to draw a rhetorical distinction between his policies and that of President Bush, a common practice when the presidency changes parties. The shift in policies, in fact, might have been more dramatic from Clinton to Bush than from Bush to Obama, given how Obama has largely maintained Bush's approach to fighting terrorism.

In other cases, Obama's quotes have been selectively trimmed for political purposes. Or they were not much different than sentiments expressed by Bush or his secretary of state. Republicans may certainly disagree with Obama's handling of foreign policy or particular policies he has pursued, but they should not invent a storyline that does not appear to exist.

But let's move on to something else they wrote:

The candidates sparred over defense spending, with Romney accusing Obama of presiding over a shrinking Navy and aging Air Force.

“Our Navy is smaller now than at any time since 1917. Our Air Force is older and smaller than at any time” since its founding, Romney said.

“We also have fewer horses and bayonets,” Obama shot back. The modern military includes aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines, he said. “The question is not a game of Battleship, where we’re counting ships. It’s what are our capabilities.”

Yes, but is it true?  They don't say.

Politifact has already debunked this one:

This is a great example of a politician using more or less accurate statistics to make a meaningless claim. Judging by the numbers alone, Romney was close to accurate. In recent years, the number of Navy and Air Force assets has sunk to levels not seen in decades, although the number of ships has risen slightly under Obama.

However, a wide range of experts told us it’s wrong to assume that a decline in the number of ships or aircraft automatically means a weaker military. Quite the contrary: The United States is the world’s unquestioned military leader today, not just because of the number of ships and aircraft in its arsenal but also because each is stocked with top-of-the-line technology and highly trained personnel.

But guess what I found for the sources of Romney's meaninglessness?  Politifact, again:

The Navy numbers

The Romney campaign didn’t get back to us, but we found their likely sourcing when we contacted the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

In January 2010, Heritage published a report titled, "The State of the U.S. Military." Citing data from the Naval History and Heritage Command, a part of the Defense Department, the report said that "the U.S. Navy’s fleet today contains the smallest number of ships since 1916. The total number of active ships in the Navy declined from 592 to 283 between 1989 and 2009." [Emphasis added.]

While it's not clear in the text, Politifact also cites that same Heritage Foundation report (you can read it here) in explaining Romney's Air Force claim.

And they add some context:

But what do those numbers mean? Not much, a variety of experts told us.

Counting the number of ships or aircraft is not a good measurement of defense strength because their capabilities have increased dramatically in recent decades. Romney’s comparison "doesn’t pass ‘the giggle test,’ " said William W. Stueck, a historian at the University of Georgia.

The context of the numbers makes Romney's claim ridiculous.

I think I see why Wereschagin and Zito would be reluctant to debunk these two myths.  They work at the Tribune-Review where their boss is Richard Mellon Scaife.  At one of their boss's other pet projects (the Trib being one, the Heritage Foundation another) these myths (the "apology tour" and "the shrunken military") have been around for years.

No one wants to be an EOD at the Trib, I suppose.

More On Salena Zito

From June of this year:

When Obama spoke of an America that wasn't blue or red in 2008, he touched upon a strand of American exceptionalism that extols nonpartisanship, pragmatic problem-solving and a presidency that serves all Americans.

However, through his bowing to foreign despots, his partisanship, his early overseas "apology tour" on which he refused to defend America's past, Obama undermined himself as a champion of the idea that America is special.

Too bad that "apology tour" just didn't happen.

But this isn't just my opinion.  Politifact gives it a "pants on fire" rating and Factcheck.org agrees:

Our fact-checking colleagues at PolitiFact and the Washington Post Fact Checker both pored over those speeches, and others, and wrote detailed analyses of the content of Obama’s words. Their conclusion: Obama never apologized.

We’ve read through the speeches as well. We’ve come to the same conclusion: Nowhere did we see that the president “apologized” for America. In some speeches, Obama was drawing a distinction between his policies and those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. In other instances, Obama appeared to be employing a bit of diplomacy, criticizing past actions of both the U.S. and the host nation, and calling for the two sides to move forward. [emphasis added.]

This is who the Tribune-Review has sent to cover the Democratic National Convention - someone in her opinion pages who dutifully spreads the republican talking points.

Yay - let's hear it for balanced, objective reporting.