Apparently no one — at least in the news media — is allowed to make a mistake anymore. The latest outbreak of sanctimony was started when Mark Foley — of the congressional page IM scandal fame — was labeled on Fox News’ “O’Reilly Factor” as a Democrat rather than Republican. Of course, Fox being the official network for Bush and the GOP has it coming and it is understandable how people might think that the error was intentional and not just a mistake.
Now more outrage bubbles up as the Associated Press incorrectly identified U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert as a Democrat. Off with their heads!
Bitching about mistakes in print or on the air is nothing new. I’ve had many calls about a misspelling or a wrong word or even — yes I committed the mortal sin — incorrectly labeling lawmakers as a Democrat when they were a Republican. I remember once how Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s people got their knickers in a wad once when I made that error. But it was an error, and yes the editors the story went through failed to notice it. Bunch of KBH haters!
What is funny about the sanctimony in the blogosphere is if you read comments on some of these blogs by people on their high horse about mistakes, you will sometime notice (God forbid) mistakes in their spelling such as this comment on “Crooks and Liars:”
“How long til Rumsfeld is a Democrat..”
So if I happen to make a mistake here, sue me. People really need to get a life.