This Is News???

I really expected more from The Washington Post.

I mean, really? The thrust of the headline and the opening is that Palin somehow made a gaffe in her statements.

Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."

The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.

Yeah. Except that's not what she said. She said that they would defend people from the enemies (not the Iraqis) who did those things. The paper is making the assumption (or hoping that readers will) that since the troops were "Iraq-bound" that she was talking about "the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein." Obviously that's not true for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that that government, and Saddam Hussein, no longer exist. So she's clearly not talking about them. The paper knows this, though, as the very next line explains:

But it is widely agreed that militants allied with al-Qaeda have taken root in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion.

Oh, so you mean al-Qaeda, which did plan, carry out, and rejoice in the deaths can actually be found in Iraq, where those Iraqi-bound troops seem to be bound for? And so the troops might defend the innocent (which I would argue includes the Iraqi people/government themselves) from al-Qaeda in Iraq?

Isn't that what she said???

Shit like this really pisses me off because it preys upon ignorance of both facts and language. And the Post should know better.

The rest of it has problems, too, but not as bad as this.

UPDATE: Ace (and others) beat me on this because I was doing stupid things, like e-mailing this info to Ken and going to work. As it turns out, that line about al-Qaeda taking root in Iraq? It was a stealth edit. It wasn't there in the first draft.

Person Sarah Palin

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