Obama Campaign and the AP trying to paint Hillary as flip flopper..not gonna work!

I originally found this story from the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com). The Huffington Post, I must say is one of the most informative news/blogging sites out there. I recommend you all checking it out, if you haven't already.

They're right, it is interesting to have Fox News of all organizations, fact checking the Associated Press. Isn't the Associated Press supposed to be the non-biased ones? They need to check themselves.

Here's the story:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/10/associated_pres_8.php

Associated Press Is Outdone In Accuracy By...Fox News!
October 12, 2007 -- 12:49 PM EST // //

It's a very sad day for a reputable news organization when it finds itself badly outdone on accuracy by Fox News, but that's exactly what happened to the Associated Press today.

The AP is running with a story right now that strains as hard as Sisyphus did with his bolder to paint Hillary as a flip-flopper. The story claims that she has now reversed herself from her earlier criticism of Barack Obama's debate assertion that he'd meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. The only problem is that the story completely butchers the facts to do so:

CANTERBURY, N.H. (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton called Barack Obama naive when he said he'd meet with the leaders of Iran without precondition. Now she says she'd do the same thing, too.

This characterization has now become an issue in the campaign, with Obama and John Edwards faulting her over it today. Unfortunately, however, Hillary didn't say this at all. What she did say, as Ben says, was this:

''I would engage in negotiations with Iran, with no conditions, because we don't really understand how Iran works. We think we do, from the outside, but I think that is misleading,'' she said at an apple orchard.

Hillary is saying here that her administration would negotiate with Iran the country unconditionally -- something she's said in various forms repeatedly in the past. She is not saying -- as Barack Obama did -- that she'd personally meet with Iranian leaders without preconditions. Their dispute centered around whether to engage in unconditional personal diplomacy. Whichever side you take, and whatever you think of this distinction, there's just no meaningful flip-flop here.

Just a few moments ago, Fox News ran a segment on this very same thing -- and glory be, Fox actually got it right. After discussing Hillary's quotes, the Fox reporter criticized the AP as follows:

But the Associated press and the Obama campaign have seized on that, and characterized it as something of a flip flop, because Hillary Clinton criticized Barack Obama earlier this year when in a debate he said that he would meet in the first year of his presidency with a whole host of foreign despots, including Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and Ahmadinejad of Iran, and that he'd do so without conditions.

Well, they claimed that Hillary Clinton suddenly embraced that position, but in truth she did not. Where Mr. Obama was talking about meeting with leaders in the first year of his administration, Hillary Clinton yesterday was talking about negotiations with Iran the country.

Yikes. When you find yourself getting fact-checked accurately by Fox News on the subject of Hillary Clinton, you know you're in a pretty bad place.

Update: Ben Smith says there's no flip-flop here, and Pat Healy suggests the same, only not as directly. And the Associated Press is now running a more accurate story with the old false lede rewritten.

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Chris McLeod