Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com claims that it "endeavors to fairly present all legitimate sides of a story," but it has yet to do so in the story of the eight fired U.S. attorneys.
In a March 20 article on conservatives who complain that conservatives who break laws or ethical standards are treated harsher than liberals or Democrats who violate the same offenses, Fred Lucas offers balanced explanation on all cases raised, but he gives short shrift to the attorneys case. While Lucas allows the American Enterprise Institute's Norman Ornstein to rebut the discredited claim that the firing of the eight attorneys is equivalent to President Cinton's replacement of all 93 U.S. attorneys when he took office by pointing out that it's "a false analogy," he lets another claim by Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid stand unrebutted -- that it's merely a "perceived scandal" because of "the Bush administration's defensive handling of questions."
A March 20 article by Susan Jones, meanwhile, embraces the 8-equals-93 analogy:
A number of conservatives also note that while the Bush administration has been blasted for firing eight out of 93 U.S. attorneys, the Clinton administration got a free pass when it fired all 93 U.S. attorneys in 1993 -- for political reasons, conservatives insist. (Liberal websites make a distinction between Clinton firing 93 U.S. attorneys at the beginning of his administration -- normal housecleaning, they say; and Bush firing 8 in the middle of his -- political maneuvering, they insist.)
Jones doesn't note Ornstein's statement in Lucas' article that the 8-equals-93 claim is "a false analogy," which happens to debunk her claim that only "liberal websites" (gee, is she perhaps referring to us?) are making that distinction. The AEI's not exactly "liberal," after all.
UPDATE: The bogus 8-equals-93 talking point is one that the rest of the MRC seems to have abandoned. The best Scott Whitlock could do in a March 20 NewsBusters post was complain that ABC used the "visual aid" of a stack of paper to represent the 3,000 pages of emails released by administration officials. Whitlock asserted that this was part of ABC's "campaign to have Attorney General Alberto Gonzales fired."
