AP Played For Chumps As Another GOP Hit On Pelosi Bites Dust

AP Played For Chumps As Another GOP Hit On Pelosi Bites Dust
May 08, 2007
Greg Sargent - The Hill

Oh, man. The GOP has a new hit out on Nancy Pelosi that's even more absurd than the bogus plane story or the "controversy" over the trip to Syria. And predictably, the Associated Press is already running with the story. The AP has already gotten its reward for doing this: A pat on the head from Matt Drudge, who predictably linked the story today, complete with a big pic of Pelosi next to the headline.

Yet this latest hit is so easily debunked -- all it took was one phone call on my part -- that it's truly astonishing that the AP ever published this garbage in the first place.

Here are the specifics: The GOP is hammering Pelosi for including a provision for $25 million in waterfront improvements in San Francisco in a big water redevelopment bill passed by the House in April. The GOP is insinuating that the provision was included by Pelosi because it could boost the value of land her husband owns in the city.

The AP jumped at the GOP's accusations late yesterday, moving this story about the GOP's attack.

As the AP story noted, Pelosi's aides are defending her by pointing out that "the waterfront improvements were requested by the Port of San Francisco," not by Pelosi, and noting that the rental properties owned by Pelosi's husband are at least a mile away from the project.

If it were proven that the improvements were in fact requested by the Port of San Francisco, and not Pelosi herself, of course, it would render the story thoroughly bogus -- unfit for publication, really. The AP, however, merely attributed this line to Pelosi's people. It's unclear whether the AP made a serious effort to determine whether it was objectively true or not. This allowed the news org to run with the GOP hit as a he-said-she-said dispute.

But I've just gotten off the phone with the Port of San Francisco. Guess what? Its representatives told me in no uncertain terms that it requested the improvements, and that Pelosi only included the improvements at their request. Here's what Brad Benson, the special project manager of the Port of San Francisco, said to me:

"The port initiated these requests. They came entirely from the city and county of San Francisco. [The requests] were generated at the staff level. The port initiated our request through the city and county of San Francisco. Our requests were funneled through the mayor's office on up to Speaker Pelosi's office...If anyone is claiming that Pelosi initiated these requests in some way, that's completely false."
Got that? Those funding provisions that the GOP is insinuating Pelosi included because they benefit her husband's real estate were actually initiated by a local agency in San Francisco, the agency says, and not by Pelosi herself. It took one phone call to nail that down -- and to show that this is a complete non-story. But the AP went ahead and ran with this crap anyway. It was bad enough that the AP even ran some versions of the story with a headline that wasn't even supported by the story in the first place, as Media Matters noted. Now we find that the story doesn't hold up at all.

You might note a pattern here. If you recall, the GOP blasted Pelosi for allegedly requesting a bigger plane and the big news orgs gleefully played along. Then when Pelosi's people said that the House Sergeant-at-Arms had requested the plane, and not Pelosi, the big news orgs that had flacked the story buried that inconvenient piece of info. A similar dynamic played out with the bogus Syria tale, too.

And now again with this Port story. How the hell do we make the hackery stop?


Update: In fairness, I should point out that the story did say that the GOP offered no evidence to substantiate its insinuation. Nonetheless, the GOP's insinuation in this case should never have been put into print in the first place, as one simple telephone call revealed.

Update II: A commenter below points out that the AP prominently featured the Pelosi camp's assertion that the Port of San Fran had requested the provision. But let me reiterate: That's completely insufficient. The AP quoted this point by attributing it to the Pelosi camp, rather than taking the extra step of independently verifying it. This allowed AP to run this story as a he-said, she-said piece.

My point is that given the extent to which this central fact completely renders this a non-story, AP should have (a) independently verified that central fact; (b) concluded that this fact deals a lethal blow to the story and proves it to be nothing more than a political hit; and as a result, (c) not run the story at all. That's my point. Now, because of the failure of AP to take this simple step, the tale is already making the rounds in wingnuttia thanks to Hannity and Drudge. This story should have never run in the first place, as that one phone call shows. Quoting the Pelosi denial is simply not enough by any stretch.