I know we all enjoy piling it on McCain, and I wish I could write a similar speech about some claim the Obama campaign made, because the real story here is sloppy reporting amplifying lies put out by a campaign. Making the rounds today is the claim that John Podesta, the Obama transition team leader, has already written an inaugural speech for Obama. This is a false claim. As Matthew Yglesias points out, John Podesta wrote a hypothetical inaugural speech for a progressive candidate in his book, submitted to the publisher way back in March or April. At the time Podesta supported Hillary Clinton. Yet the news coverage presents each side equally, and refuses to refute the falsehood (in the above Politico article, rather than stating the truth at the beginning, we find out the truth in paragraph 13). In turn this leads lazy readers to believe that the statement is actually true, that Obama did write an inaugural speech and is now trying to deny it. This happens all the time with news media. Some issues aren't split down the middle - one side is right and the other isn't. Yet in the interest of a balanced story, news tries to present both sides. The truth gets obscured.
We expect this sort of spin from campaign literature (Willie Horton et al.) but shame on the media when this gets picked up and amplified.
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