Raw HTML code for 6/16/09 blogburst post: "False AP report: Obama did NOT say that Iran must respect voters' choice"
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False AP report: Obama did NOT say that Iran must respect voters' choice
Obama's comments were mushy, yes, but at least he said the most important
thing, according to AP:<blockquote>He said it's up to Iran to determine its own
leaders but that the country must respect voters' choice.</blockquote>Why then
have <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg16-2009jun16,0,6606670.column">reputable
people</a> continued to pass <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/06/023816.php">harsh
judgment</a>? And why would AP paraphrase what would have been Obama’s key
statement?
Turns out Obama said no such thing. What he <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/06/obama_breaks_silence_on_irania.asp">actually
said</a> is that the VOICES of the Iranian people should be heard and respected,
not their votes:<blockquote>And particularly to the youth of Iran, I want them
to know that we in the United States do not want to make any decisions for the
Iranians, but we do believe that the Iranian people and their voices should be
heard and respected.</blockquote>This is consistent with the rest of Obama's
remarks. He never said a word about respecting votes. Obama did mention "the
democratic process," but far from saying anything about this process having to
meet any standards of integrity, he instead implied strongly that he will accept
whatever result the "process" followed by the Mullahs produces:<blockquote>I
want to start off by being very clear that it is up to Iranians to make
decisions about who Iran’s leaders will be; that we respect Iranian sovereignty
and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which
sometimes the United States can be a handy political football...</blockquote>Democracy
means that Iranian sovereignty lies with the Iranian people and that a regime
that rigs an election is NOT sovereign. Yet Obama is explicit that he will
continue to treat the mullahs as the Iranian sovereign no matter how they judge
the election. He even goes so far as to suggest that the only reason he is
bothering to comment on the competing claim to sovereignty at all is because it
would be unseemly for him not to:<blockquote>We will continue to pursue a tough,
direct dialogue between our two countries, and we’ll see where it takes us. But
even as we do so, I think it would be wrong for me to be silent about what we’ve
seen on the television over the last few days.</blockquote>The only operative
concerns that he mentions are for: "free speech, the ability of people to
peacefully dissent." When he talks about the "democratic process" going forward,
all he urges is that the process be peaceful and that dissent be allowed. He
says nothing about the process being honest:<blockquote>...there appears to be a
sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed
to democracy who now feel betrayed. And I think it’s important that, moving
forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not
resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in
expressing their views.</blockquote>It is no accident that Obama ended with the
statement that AP paraphrased so egregiously (equating his call for bloodless
suppression with a demand for legitimate elections). This was his theme
throughout. He views the honesty of Iran's democratic process as something to be
judged by the mullahs, who he clearly accepts to be the sovereign power,
regardless of the merits of competing claims.
<strong>AP covers its tracks, just like they did with the Flight 93
memorial</strong>
<a href="http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/HonorFlight93/" target="_blank"><img
src="http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z36/AlecRawls/Blogburstlogoclickforpetition.jpg"
border="0" alt="Blogburst logo, petition"/></a>
AP's fraudulent report about Obama demanding respect for voters' choice was the
primary print report on Obama's comments. Now that it has already misled
millions of people, AP has covered its tracks by filing an update that <a href="http://www.tri-cityherald.com/918/story/614936.html">overwrites</a>
the errant statement. This is what AP does when it gets caught putting out
misinformation. To avoid issuing a correction, they flush the misleading story
down the memory hole by using the same url for a completely different story. (<a
href="http://www.google.com/search?q=%22up+to+Iran+to+determine+its+own+leaders+but+that+the+country+must+respect%22&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7SNYI_en">Google</a>
only finds AP's original article still posted at <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/15/obama-iran-determine-leaders/">Fox
News</a>.)
AP did the same thing last year after it was taken to task for failing to check
the most basic facts in a story about the controversy over possible Islamic
symbolism in the Flight 93 memorial. Ramesh Santanam <a href="http://www.crescentofbetrayal.com/AP'sErasureOfRameshArticle.htm">reported</a>
a number of conflicting factual assertions, like the 44 blocks:<blockquote>Opponents
also claim there is a plan to have 44 glass blocks, for the 40 victims and four
hijackers, in the design.
"That's an absolute, unequivocal fabrication that is being portrayed as fact,"
said Edward Felt's brother, Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93.
"It's misleading and helps drive the conspiracy theory."</blockquote>When it was
pointed out that Santanam could have found the four extra blocks just by opening
up the design drawings and <a href="http://www.crescentofbetrayal.com/VerifyingThe44Blocks.htm">counting</a>,
AP quickly filed a completely different story (about fundraising for the
memorial), under the same url.
It's not that there is anything inherently wrong with AP using subject feeds
that automatically update with their latest offering. It is that AP is
systematically using this system to dodge corrections. This is actually their <a
href="http://www.ap.org/newsvalues/index.html">official policy</a>:<blockquote>For
corrections on live, online stories, we overwrite the previous version. We send
separate corrective stories online as warranted.</blockquote>Except AP virtually
never issue corrective stories, for the simple reason that AP <a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=31&x_article=720">has
no established correction procedure</a>. They just do the overwrite thing and
say "too bad."
Well this time the overwrite thing is not good enough.
<strong>Demand a corrective story about AP's false paraphrase of Obama's
words</strong>
Associated Press obviously understands the importance of Obama saying that Iran
must respect voters' choice or they wouldn't have bothered to pretend that he
said it when he didn't. They don't just fail to mention Obama's glaring omission
on this crucial point, but actually tell the public via false paraphrase that he
did say what he glaringly omitted. This cannot stand. Faced with our new
president's key statement on a historic crisis, AP reports a photo negative of
what Obama actually said.
There may be no established procedure for AP corrections, but anyone can still
send a <a href="mailto:tcurley@ap.org,kcarroll@ap.org,jlumpkin@ap.org,jloven@ap.org,agearan@ap.org,rburns@ap.org,feedback@ap.org,lmargasak@ap.org,npickler@ap.org,rfournier@ap.org,thunt@ap.org,traum@ap.org,info@ap.org,gclark@ap.org?cc=alec@rawls.org&subject=False
AP report--Obama did NOT say that Iran must respect voter choice&body=Correction
request, re AP's 6-15-09 story on Obama's comments from Italy about the Iranian
uprising%0A%0AAP's paraphrase of Obama--'He said...that the country must respect
voters' choice.' What Obama actually said is that the VOICES of the Iranian
people should be heard and respected, not their votes, and he was consistent on
this throughout, never once saying that the Iranian's must respect voter choice,
as your story asserts.%0A%0AIt is clear that AP understands the importance of
Obama saying that Iran must respect voters' choice or you wouldn't have bothered
to pretend that he said it when he didn't. Your report doesn't just fail to
mention Obama's glaring omission on this crucial point, but actually tells the
public via false paraphrase that he did say what he glaringly omitted. It is
insufficient to simply over-write this misinformation after it has already been
distributed to hundreds of thousands of people. Faced with our new president's
key statement on a historic crisis, AP has reported the photo negative of what
Obama actually said. A corrective story is absolutely required.%0A%0ADetailed
critique at www.errortheory.blogspot.com/2009/06/false-ap-report-obama-did-not-say-that.html">pre-written
email</a> to AP CEO Tom Curley, Editor Kathleen Carroll, the reporters who
worked on the story (the egregious Jennifer Loven, along with Anne Gearan and
Robert Burns), plus a smattering of other AP editors and bureaucrats. Who knows.
There may even be a limit to how disingenuous some of these people are willing
to be.
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