Topic: CNSNews.com
A Jan. 26 CNSNews.com article by Melanie Hunter-Omar provides a fawning depiction of Michele Bachmann's post-State of the Union speech, claiming that President Obama "failed to deliver on his promise to keep unemployment under eight percent by spending a trillion dollars on the federal stimulus program."
What Hunter-Omar doesn't do is mention anything unpleasant regarding Bachmann's speech -- like what she got wrong. For instance, take the claim Hunter-Omar led her article with. As the Washington Post noted, Obama never "promised" that that the stimulus plan would keep unemployment under eight percent.
The Post found other misleading claims by Bachmann, as did CNN, regarding another Bachmann claim Hunter-Omar uncritically repeated, that health care reform "will put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama’s healthcare bill." CNN called the claim "at best, misleading."
Hunter-Omar also avoid mention of the single most talked-about aspect of Bachmann's speech: the way she gave it. Viewers at CNN, which aired the speech live, were treated to Bachmann delivering it while looking somewhere other than directly into the camera; it turns out she was looking into a different camera used for the speech's Web feed.
