Posted on 09/07/2004 8:44:07 PM PDT by gogipper
Several have mentioned the false report from the AP that there were boo's when President Bush asked for prayers for President Clinton before his surgery. This event was the first big rally in Wisconsin after the convention. I was there. The report was totally false, there were no boos.
Powerline blog has done legwork to locate contact emails and has framed the issue at this link. Just a couple of sentences to these emails will require AP to reconsider the efficacy of publishing lies rather than straight reporting.
POWERLINE BLOG WRITES::::::::::
Waiting for Mr. Hays
Over the weekend, we wrote about the false Associated Press report on a rally for President Bush in West Allis, Wisconsin. The AP report, by AP correspondent Tom Hays, said that "Bush's audience of thousands in West Allis, Wis., booed. Bush did nothing to stop them." This was a lie; the audiotape of the rally discloses no booing whatsoever. The AP subsequently issued a corrected version of the article, which deleted all reference to the non-existent booing.
I emailed Mr. Hays over the weekend to ask for an explanation. This morning I sent Mr. Hays the following email:
Mr. Hays, I assume that you are back in your office after the holiday and will now be in a position to respond to my earlier email asking about your false report that Republicans booed President Clinton at a rally in West Allis, Wisconsin, and President Bush "did nothing to stop them." I have listened to the audio of the rally; there was no booing. I have been told by a number of people who were present at the rally that there was no booing. The Associated Press issued a corrected version of your story deleting the false claim that the crowd booed. So, I want to know what you have to say for yourself. Were you actually at the West Allis rally? If not, from whom did you get the false information that the crowd booed? If you were at the rally, what was your basis for reporting that the crowd booed and President Bush did nothing to stop it? And what relationship, formal or informal, do you have with the Kerry campaign?
I look forward to hearing from you. We have a website that is read by 50,000 or more people, and we have commented on this incident at length. Those comments have been linked to by other websites with readerships totaling in the millions. If you have anything to say for yourself, I will happily print it. Otherwise, I will be forced to conclude, and will publish my conclusion, that this is a naked instance of press bias, and that you deliberately filed a false report for the purpose of aiding the Kerry campaign.
Mr. Hays' email address is thays@ap.org. I will advise our readers if and when I get a response from him. In the meantime, polite emails to the above address, asking for an explanation of his false report, would be appropriate.
Here is his contact info:
Read this Free Republic thread:Tom Hays
Associated Press
212-587-8035
thays@ap.org
Booing the AP(AP reporter ID'ed using Lexis-Nexis)
Wouldn't that make them tax exempt?
The President needs to insist that AP corrects their correction. The AP wants "the crowd didn't boo Bush" to be good enough to make us drop it while they are on the ropes. Bush needs to insist that the correction be corrected to reflect the true AP accusation that the crowd booed Clinton with Bush's approval.
If AP refuses to correct that, the President needs to suspend AP from executive coverage for ONE WEEK...that is all it would take. They couldn't bury it, their lies would be exposed.
I have written numerous emails on the subject. So far no response
Perhaps a silent prayer for Clinton in the privacy of the White House would have sufficed if the President felt the need to pray for Bubba. This constant positive attention he pays to Clinton mystifies me.
Don't hold your breath. Hays is heavily partisan and doesn't care if people know it. indeed, he's reflective of most of the media ... they don't care anymore if we know that they're pro-Kerry and will print stories that are unashamed in promoting their candidate. They are the quintessential hypocrites and they just don't care.
Until he apologizes publicly and nationally, the Bush Campaign should pull AP's press pass indefinitely.
It's compassionate conservatism.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.