HERE’S A STORY IN WHICH THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CLAIMS THAT A "CARDINAL SAYS BUSH BROKE IRAQ PROMISE."
Trouble is, the article shows the cardinal (Pio Laghi) saying nothing of the kind.
It quotes him as saying:
"When I went to Washington as the pope’s envoy just before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, he (Bush) told me: `Don’t worry, your eminence. We’ll be quick and do well in Iraq,’"
"Unfortunately, the facts have demonstrated afterward that things took a different course — not rapid and not favorable."
"Bush was wrong."
I’m sorry, but "Bush was wrong" does not mean "Bush broke a promise." The first statement attributes to the President a misperception of fact (how things would go), while the second attributes to him a moral failure to perform actions that were reasonably within his power to bring about–or a moral failure by making promises regarding something that one unreasonably believed to be within one’s power to bring about.
The Cardinal attributes neither of the latter to President Bush.
Opponents of the President might wish to attribute these to him, though based on what the Cardinal says I severely doubt that Bush was understood to promise a specific outcome. It would be more natural to understand the President as making a commitment to act expeditiously and making a prediction (not a promise) that things would go well. The first (commitment to act expeditiously) is a promise. The second (things will go well) is not.
In any event, but the Cardinal does not say that Bush broke a promise, and by headlining the article the way it did, the Associated Press misportrayed the Cardinal’s remarks–and simultaneously portrayed itself as a petulant organization willing to spout Democratic Party spin as if it were a pouting child suffering a disappointing loss.
Since the AP says it subscribes to the Associated Press Managing Editors’ ethics statement, it’s interesting to note that this statement says:
The newspaper should guard against inaccuracies, carelessness, bias
or distortion through emphasis, omission or technological manipulation.The newspaper should deal honestly with readers and newsmakers. It should keep its promises [SOURCE].
Well, the AP didn’t sufficiently do these things in crafting the headline of this story. It therefore is also interesting to note that the APME ethics statement also says:
It should acknowledge substantive errors and correct them promptly and prominently.
Somehow, I doubt the AP will issue a retraction.
Now, someone might nitpick that I haven’t demonstrated that the AP broke a promise because the ethics statement only says a paper should guard against inaccuracies, not that it is committed to preventing them.
Fair enough. If the AP is not committed to preventing inaccuracies then it has not broken one of its commitments.
But my headline is at least as accurate as the AP’s.
The AP headline writer has gotten several things wrong lately. After the woman in Missouri murdered a woman, cut her open, and kidnapped her child, the AP headlined that the woman was “charged with theft of child.” I emailed them to point out that a child was a person, and people cannot be “stolen,” at least not since the end of slavery and the Civil War. The article correctly pointed out that the woman had been charged with kidnapping. Of course, the abortion mentality permits us to think of children as objects, and therefore to confuse kidnapping and theft.
But imagine the quandry of the AP headline writer: whether ’tis nobler to indulge one’s anti-Catholic sentiment or to indulge one’s anti-Bush sentiment? Of such dilemas great fiction is made.
Sadly, the AP is becoming yet another partisan hack organization in the MSM. Their election coverage was especially bad and has been under constant criticism over on the powerline, and instapundit. So its good to see your mention here in another context.
Jimmy, there’s one thing you’re forgetting here. Laghi was acting as a professional diplomat when he met President Bush. Professional diplomats do not make the nature of private conversations public.
It should be obvious that Laghi has an ideological ax to grind, that ax being the Vatican’s misplaced opposition to the war in Iraq. As JPII continues to deteriorate, various Vatican factions will vie for power — and many of those factions have an anti-Western, even anti-Semitic, attitude.
I have written about this extensively. See the following stories:
http://www.geocities.com/emorseraf/vatican_appeasers.htm
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11662
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13455
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1082438195496&p=1006953079865
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=15865
Mr. D’Hippolito,
Your articles are interesting.
I would be surprised if a Catholic prelate stated: “‘When asked whether the God of Christians is the same as Allah, [Monsignor] Mazzolari replied, ‘No way! Where would the concept of the Trinity fit in? And Christ is certainly not the greatest of their prophets.'”
Thanks, Steve. BTW, one of the fundamental problems with most Catholic prelates (indeed, with most Catholics and mainline Protestants) is that they’ve bought into a view of ecumenism that refuses to acknowledge legitimate differnces between religions. For example, both Judaism and Christianity require atonement for sin. Islam, however, is a “works-based” religion that decrees that all Muslims have to do to be good Muslims is 1) visit Mecca at least once in one’s life 2) give to charity 3) pray five times daily 4)fast during Ramahdan 5) believe that there’s only one God and that Mohammed is his prophet. While Christ certainly advocated fasting, charity and prayer (and, as a Jew, he would make the required Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem), He would argue that none of these things, individually or collectively, atone for sin. That’s why the Mosaic Law established various sacrifices for sin. That’s why Christ came: to fulfill the Mosaic Law.