AP's Big Boo-Boo

According to CAMERA, the Associated Press fessed up today to a teeny-weenie, itsy-bitsy little error. Yesterday and today, the wire service reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair gave an interview in which he discussed the "very deep roots" of terrorism and linked the attacks against his country to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The "Blair remarks" resulted in a minor stink, with reaction from Israeli officials and the usual bloviating by the chief Palestinian propagandist, Saeb "Jenin Mass Graves" Erekat.

Well, guess what? Oops! All wrong. Blair didn't say it. Sorrrrry!

The AP seems to be trying to sleaze its way out of this by issuing a correction. Uh-uh. It should issue a corrective article highlighting its mistake and the hoo-ha it temporarily caused. This is way up there with Jayson Blair. A phony international incident was created because of an inept AP reporter who should be tossed out on his keister. Heads should roll, and the AP should be forced to eat mud over this.

At the same time the AP was fixing one mess, it was creating another. The news service ran a cruddy little propaganda piece on the plight of a poor, poor Palestinian family inconvenienced by the wall in Jerusalem, without explaining why the big, bad mean Israelis would be so sadistic as to build a wall. Like, maybe, suicide bombings? Like, maybe, terrorism? Not in the story.

AP reporter Lara Sukhtian is apparently a student of the same "alternate reality" school of journalism of which the increasingly loathsome Hassan Fattah is the resident guru.