The Associated Press Twists the Truth

Long-time readers of this site know that the Associated Press is not a reliable news source. One of the most blatant lies of the 2004 campaign was when AP reporter Scott Lindlaw, a long-time Democratic partisan, falsely reported that a crowd of Republicans in Wisconsin booed when President Bush announced that Bill Clinton had just been hospitalized with a heart problem. We publicized this story here, as did others in the blogosphere. We did a number of follow-up posts, including this one. Despite many emails sent by our readers and others, the AP stonewalled and never apologized for the outrageous lie told by its reporter.
Reader Michael Yore points out that the AP is at it again, with this report about Secretary Rumsfeld’s trip to Mosul to visit the troops there:

The questions from the troops for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were considerably more friendly on his Christmas Eve visit to Iraq than they were on his previous trip to the region a couple of weeks ago.
Two weeks ago at a forward base in Kuwait, a handful of soldiers openly challenged him about inadequate equipment and long deployments.
Rumsfeld cut off their complaints by saying, “You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have.” That set off a wave of criticism of the defense chief’s brusque manner.

This is pure fabrication. The transcript of Rumsfeld’s question and answer session in Kuwait is here. Judge for yourself whether Rumsfeld “cut off [the soldiers’] complaints”:

Q: Yes, Mr. Secretary. My question is more logistical. We

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