It makes it hard to debate the issues when the MSM doesn't even get its facts right. This Washington Post description from yesterday's press conference is quite typical:
In their first visit together at the White House since winning reelection in campaigns dominated by Iraq and U.S. foreign policy, Bush and Blair trumpeted a new U.S. plan to spend $674 million more on famine relief....The only problem? It's completely wrong. Bush did NOT increase funding by $674 million. All he did was release money that had already been allocated by Congress. This is bad on many levels. Most casual viewers will believe what the media reported, that the US dug deep and offered up an extra $674 million to help the hungry. The truth is that the US is the most miserly of the major industrialized powers -- we give FAR less in foreign aid than every other country in the G8.
And yesterday Blair came hat in hand and said this is vitally important both to the world and to me politically and Bush sent him packing without giving Blair a single red cent. So the media misses Bush's lack of loyalty to an ally, misses Blair's shame, misses America's unChristian refusal to help our fellow neighbors and mislead the public into thinking our government was doing the right thing.
What can you do? Write to your local paper if they got it wrong and ask when they're going to run a correction and explain why they got such a basic fact wrong. The NYT and other outlets quoted administration officials the day of the press conference explaining the $674 million and that it wasn't new funding, so why did everyone get it so wrong?
