Credit where it's due: The AP

I teased the AP for letting The Colbert Report game them--although, I imagine, the Colbert fans at AP went out of their way to help engineer it.

But this isn't an iffy call--and bless their Associated Press hearts for paying attention and getting the story right.

By way of background:

1. Al Gore called Bush out for illegal wiretaps, and for his general disdain for the law and disrespect for the Constitution.


2. Bush's official Wormtongue, the sweat-drenched Scott McClellan, claimed that Gore was a hypocrite, for reasons not clearly discernable except that "hypocrite" sounds bad.


3. Gore then pointed out the easily Google-able facts showing Wormtongue and his masters to be the liars they are. In 2005, that might simply have lead to another bit of saphead-objective reports suggesting that Gore and the GOP smear machine are morally and rhetorically on a par.

But in 2006 the AP isn't falling for the GOP attack line.

It's so nice--it's such a simple pleasure--to have some part of the mainstream press behave like it has a responsibility to those of us who can add two and two--those of us who live outside the Beltway, don't regularly attend DC dinner parties, and don't own lobbyists and Members of Congress.