The AP’s Beth Fouhy has written a particularly offensive hit piece against Sen. McCain. This shocks me not even a little, though it’s more than a little disappointing. Consider these paragraphs as why I think it’s a hit piece against Sen. McCain:

Just last month, McCain reversed himself after years of opposition and called for lifting the federal ban on oil drilling off the U.S. coast. The Arizona senator promotes energy development as a way to boost the economy, and a recent poll found many voters are open to offshore drilling as a way to ease gasoline prices.

But McCain’s views could be troublesome in California, which has seen its share of catastrophic offshore oil spills. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a McCain ally, opposes such drilling and in a television interview indicated he would be open one day to serving as the “energy czar” in an Obama administration.

It isn’t a stretch to think that Fouhy’s intent was to label McCain a flip-flopper without calling him that directly. It’s also not a stretch to think that mentioning girlie-man Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desire to be Obama’s energy czar is meant to imply that Republicans are split on drilling.

Then there’s this:

McCain also insisted the technology exists to quickly bring oil produced offshore to market, even as the federal government has estimated it would take years for new offshore oil exploration to yield results.

As I said here, Sen. McCain has talked with oil industry experts. They’ve told him that it’s possible to extract oil from rigs in shallow water within 2-3 years. Ms. Fouhy’s mention of the EIA’s ’study’ is introduced to argue against Sen. McCain’s position, which is informed by industry experts.

That’s a time-tested tactic with liberals: reflexively agree government bureaucrats; reflexively argue with industry experts.

It seems to me that that’s a surefire recipe for getting things wrong.

Notice how things get conflated in this paragraph:

Last week, McCain’s campaign scrapped a visit to an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Dolly bore down on Louisiana. The campaign cited weather for the cancellation, which also came after a Liberian tanker spilled 419,000 gallons of oil into the Mississippi River outside New Orleans.

It isn’t accidental that Ms. Fouhy talks about an oil spill in the same paragraph as she talks about oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. What does one have to do with the other? The Liberian tanker was hit by a barge.

What isn’t mentioned is whether there was any oil spilled in the Gulf as a result of Dolly. I don’t think Ms. Fouhy much cares about that, which should be a central issue of this article. Let’s remember that being unbiased isn’t part of the AP’s new style under Ron Fournier:

There’s more to her vinegary remark than just the aftertaste of a sour parting. Fournier is a main engine in a high-stakes experiment at the 162-year old wire to move from its signature neutral and detached tone to an aggressive, plain-spoken style of writing that Fournier often describes as “cutting through the clutter.”

I said then what I’ll repeat now: The AP will no longer pretend to be unbiased. The good news is that the New Media is there to expose hit pieces like the one Ms. Fouhy wrote.

Technorati Tags: Beth Fouhy, John McCain, Arnold Sshwarzenegger, Obama, Drilling, Oil Spills, OCS, Hurricane Dolly, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog