Now there's the hit piece Washington Post article by Weisman to attack. He took the Obama quote completely out of context, truncated it, and then called him "presumptuous."

Thanks Greg for driving this story and keeping it alive!

Greg, it doesn't matter, the meme of the day is "hubris."

Watching Morning Joe this morning was incredible. Joe, who rode this troop-visiting story until it could be ridden no more, barely made a mention of the WaPo story.

But Obama being "arrogant" and "presumptuous," was worth hours of discussion.

I think if there were ever an example of the total emptiness of modern journalism, it's this "hubris" story. It isn't examining policy or describing how an Obama presidency will affect real people. It is something that literally will have no impact on our daily lives.

And yet, journalists are dedicated hours of coverage to this as a major determining factor in whether we should elect Obama. Sigh.

Thanks, just had to get that off my chest.

http://strategy08.wordpress.com

The McCain attack had the short term effect of changing the media narrative coming out of the Obama trip. So it was a short term win for McCain, but in the long term the media push back could prove far more damaging to McCain. If Old Straight Talk's reputation for telling the truth is destroyed Old Straight Talk will have to change his nickname.

The big media organizations made the mistake of not asking their reporters accompanying Obama if he ever had any plans to take them or their cameras to the hospital. If they had they would have known the truth before the lie propagated. Their willingness to take McCain at his word without fact checking proved a big embarrassment for all of them.

Beautiful! Thanks for following up on this, Greg. Helps to restore one's faith in the media when you see responsiveness like this. :)

Don't tell me the Straight-Talkin-Express has been pulled over for a sobrity check!

Christ, what took them so long!

It was clear within 24 hours that the republican attacks were baseless, but yet they were regurgitated, uncritically, by the news orgs.

The so-called Fourth Estate has not lived up to its promise. But, I guess, better late than never. The damage has been done.

Hats off to Greg and TPM. You guys helped push this correction to the mainstream media, which are begrudgingly, belatedly correcting the record.

Great job!

Applauding the press for fact checking is like applauding a husband for not beating his wife.

Great, the WaPo finally got it. Doesn't excuse their first blunder.

I just ask for accurate reporting across the board, whether it hurts the candidate I support or not.

I agree with McCain that this campaign is about wisdom, Judgement and honor and clearly much of his campaign is based on little of these policies. From his endless switching of positions on Iraq, his self-procalimed "critic of Bush", to his endless pandering to the religious right and the environmentalist while his record shows a lack of enthusiasm for either, to his false ascertation that he does not like talking about his war record while talking about it all the time, to this latest blatant falsehood, McCain is losing all of his honor judgement and and wisdom for the reality that we as Americans face everyday!

A New York Times editorial this morning slams the MehCain campaign over the same issues.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/opinion/30wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin

Knowing the Bush White House, I don't think it's at all unlikely that right-wing pigs at the White House and/or DOJ refused admittance to Obama just in order to feed the crap story to the McCain campain and have them make hay about it.

Let's not get all excited about the 'big media' suddenly developing concerns about being manipulated by the McCain campaign.

As of this writing, the web WaPo's front page features two Obama-related headlines. First, "McCain's Charge Lacks Evidence," -- not "is false".

Second, right beneath it, "President Obama Continues Tour," with a first sentence that repeats the McCain line virtually verbatim:

Long his party's presumptive nominee, he is now becoming presumptuous nominee.

Why wouldn't Obama WANT to visit the troops? It'd be a major mistake NOT to UNLESS it could be seen a mere aggrandizement for his campaign. Which he thought it would be. Like kissing a baby. Except this baby belongs to the general's daughter. So he didn't.

If he had, he would have to have said at the outset that it was not it anyway to be construed with campaigning. But that would've been difficult because the whole European trip was paid for with campaign dollars.

So was he snookered? Well, kind of, but when you're playing with a man who wears Beelzebub's shoes, all bets are off.

Two days late, two dollars short.