Topic: CNSNews.com
A May 6 CNSNews.com article (as posted at Free Republic) by Fred Lucas carried the headline, "Gibbs Can't Say, Won’t Check, If Obama Used Sexual Slur Against Tea Party Activists." The article began, "White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said he did not know and could not imagine asking President Barack Obama whether he used the vulgar sexual term 'tea baggers' to describe Americans active in the Tea Party movement."
But Lucas didn't tell the whole story -- as the transcript of the May 6 White House press briefing shows, Gibbs added, "I can’t imagine I’m going to ask the President that. But I will entertain it. ... I will check."
So CNS had to walk it back. Lucas' article now begins with a correction:
Correction: An initial posting of this CNSNews.com story by Fred Lucas had incorrectly reported that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in his Thursday, May 6, 2010 press briefing that he would not check if President Barack Obama had used the term “tea baggers” to describe activists in the Tea Party movement. In response to a question about whether President Obama had used the term tea baggers, Gibbs actually said, “I can’t imagine I’m going to ask the President that. But I will entertain it.” Gibbs later added, “I will check.”
So CNS does make corrections after all. It still hasn't corrected Matt Cover's false claim that when then-Transportation Security Administration director nominee Erroll Southers referred to some groups that post a domestic security threat as being "Christian-identity oriented,"he was referring to a specific extremist group called Christian Identity and not to Christianity in general.
