Associated Press Hides Partisan Advocacy Behind "Analysis"
If Politico has emerged as the ESPN of politics, covering the game but not the content of government, the Associated Press in recent weeks has delivered another media innovation. Time and again, the AP has delivered opinion pieces to its readers using the headline, "Analysis." But if a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, some of the output of the AP smells like something else altogether.
Chief among the op-ed writers masquerading as journalists is Liz Sidoti. Sidoti, who famously presented candidate John McCain with a box of donuts during an AP campaign forum last year, proclaimed Saturday that "Barack Obama's optimistic campaign rhetoric has crashed headlong into the stark reality of governing." In a 1000 word screed titled, "Analysis: Obama Rhetoric, Reality Clash," she warning that "people could perceive him as a say-one-thing-do-another politician," Sidoti took the President to task:
"In office two months, he has backpedaled on an array of issues, gingerly shifting positions as circumstances dictate while ducking for political cover to avoid undercutting his credibility and authority. That's happened on the Iraq troop withdrawal timeline, on lobbyists in his administration and on money for lawmakers' pet projects."
Two weeks earlier, Sidoti offered another of her so-called analyses. In a March 8 piece titled, "Analysis: Obama Embracing Crisis as Opportunity," Sidoti suggested President Obama was capitalizing on "the worst economic conditions in a generation as an opportunity to advance an audacious agenda that, if successful, could reshape the country for decades to come," while insisting "he could fall victim to grandiose plans and too-high expectations if he doesn't deliver." And while looking at presidents past ("rightly or wrongly, he's often compared with Democrat Franklin Roosevelt"), Sidoti offered Ronald Reagan as a role model for Obama:
"In the 1980s, Republican Ronald Reagan led a country faced with sky-high inflation and a growing Soviet threat. He used the public's anxieties about the Cold War and the economy to win support for an expanded military even as he limited the size of government, instituted across-the-board tax cuts and promoted supply-side economics."
Of course, President Reagan did not "limit the size of government." Far from it. Reagan's combination of increased spending and dangerously irresponsible tax cuts produced the massive budget deficits that are his true legacy. As it turns out, the national debt tripled under Reagan, only to double again under George W. Bush.
