AP Reporter Distorts Rumsfeld's Speech to American Legion

Rumsfeld Reaches Out to Democrats
In Letter, Secretary Says Recent Speech Was Misconstrued

By Anne Plummer Flaherty
Associated Press
Saturday, September 2, 2006; Page A12

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reached out to Democrats yesterday, opening the door for them to retract their stinging indictment of him as Pentagon chief.

In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said remarks he made Tuesday during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the news media. Rumsfeld said he was "concerned" by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory.

"I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive," Rumsfeld wrote.

In his speech before thousands of veterans, Rumsfeld said the world faces "a new type of fascism" and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement. He alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."

Well it seems that we have identified another Democrat Propaganda Operative at AP. Robert Burns was forced to re-write his report on Rumsfeld's speech to the American Legion in Salt Lake City. This Post story fails to discuss the blatant distortion which it and many other news organizations so readily broadcast across the nation.

Stars and Stripes has the full story.

"The AP had written that Rumsfeld had “likened critics of the U.S. war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis” and that Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral and intellectual confusion” about what threatens the nation’s security."

This was later revised to more accurately reflect what Rumsfeld actually said:

According to AP, he quoted Winston Churchill as observing that trying to accommodate Hitler was “a bit like feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last.”

“I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism,” Rumsfeld said.

“Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?” he asked. “Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America, not the enemy, is the real source of the world’s troubles?”

Hmmm, that is considerably different from what AP's Robert Burns originally reported. Of course our nation's professional whiners (the Democrat Leadership) refused to feel less "offended" by these revisions.

I am sooo disappointed that Rumsfeld didn't say what was first reported, because that was closer to the truth about Democrats.

Full Story: AP: Liars at Large

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