May 29, 2013, online edition, print edition unknown.
Story headline: “Michele Bachmann’s Iowa court date set”
Lead paragraph: A trial date has been set in an Iowa lawsuit alleging that Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., stole and misused an e-mail distribution list maintained by an Iowa home school group during her failed 2012 presidential campaign.
The fifth paragraph: The lawsuit names Bachmann, her campaign, former campaign chairman Kent Sorenson and five other Republican operatives, along with their personal business entities. It alleges that Sorenson stole the home-schooler database off Barbara Heki’s personal computer in early November 2011 as it sat in a Bachmann campaign office in Urbandale.
See any inconsistency in the emboldened quotes (by us) direct out of the DMR article?
Early on we are led to believe that Michelle Bachmann did the alleged dirty deed. Note that it does not say that Michelle Bachmann’s campaign (nebulously) did the deed, no, she did it herself. Later on, we learn that well, the allegation is that Kent Sorenson did the dirty deed.
Now we feel that from reading the entire article and other related articles, the complainant’s case as to the culpability of those charged is weak, as is her claim of substantial personal damages. But we are intrigued by the DMR’s standard of headline writing and imputing direct culpability as regards the titular top administrator of a campaign.
The issue we are raising is not guilt or innocence, it is the DMR’s standards and consistency in reporting or implying culpability for political personages. So should we expect to see stories regarding allegations about scandal’s in the Obama administration of late with verbiage something like:
“Hearings set in House . . . Obama alleged to have used his office to deny Tea Party and other conservative groups right to fair treatment” (not the IRS or Obama’s minions mind you, Obama himself)
“Obama saw to the lies about Benghazi” (he wrote the talking points himself).
“Obama monitored e-mails of the AP and Fox News reporters?” (not his Justice Department or key political appointee Eric Holder, Obama himself).
We will not hold our breath.
Obama has far more culpability for fostering an environment of wrong doing at the level breadth and longevity we have seen because of the resources at his beck and call than M. Bachmann. Add in the aggravating lying hypocrisy at unprecedented levels and Obama is off the meter. R Mall
