WaPo/AP Caught Revising the O’Donnell Story Without Issuing a Correction

How much did the left show its keister on O’Donnell’s alleged gaffe?  So much so that the AP/WaPo story on the subject was almost completely rewritten last night, and without an official correction.  After the break I will have screen caps and a cut and paste of the text of the article, but let’s start with just the first paragraph.

Before:

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the U.S. Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion.

After:

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Republican Christine O'Donnell challenged her Democratic rival Tuesday to show where the Constitution requires separation of church and state, drawing swift criticism from her opponent, laughter from her law school audience and a quick defense from prominent conservatives.

Literally I ran a document comparison in word between the original text and every other sentence is completely rewritten.

Oh, and how hard has the AP worked to correct this story?  Well, here’s a google search of the original version, which apparently the AP is disowning.  As of this writing, I got about 23K hits for that.  By comparison I got 4K hits for the corrected version.

More after the break.

OMG!!! O’Donnell Compared Gay Sex to Adultery (and Other Idiocy Related to Gay Rights)

Christine O’Donnell makes an adult point about gays in the military during the debate last night.  Think progress plays the tired game of “can you believe she compared gay sex to that?”

Specifically when asked about DADT, she said (assuming Thinkprogress is not actually lying—which is not always a safe assumption with them):

The military already regulates personal behavior in that it doesn’t allow affairs to go on within your chain of command. It does not allow it you are married to have an adulterous affair within the military. So the military already regulates personal behavior because it feels that it is in the best interest of our military readiness.

So Thinkprogress argues this is “compare[ing] allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military to ‘adultery.’”  First, she was not saying allowing gays to serve openly is like the act of adultery.  Second, she was not comparing gay sex to adultery, either.  She was pointing out that the military does in fact regulate private consensual sexual behavior that the law ordinarily would not prohibit, and few would even credibly question that practice.  You can literally go to jail for adultery in the military.  And it makes the point that whatever right to privacy exists in civilian life is significantly reduced in military life.  If you can prohibit adultery in the military without a constitutional problem, it significantly undermines the argument for repealing DADT.

This is a logical and cogent argument.  And Think Progress wants to pretend that it is somehow out of bounds.  Don’t play this game, conservatives.  By the time you are done, you won’t be allowed to make any argument for your side on any subject.

Also for bonus points they denounced her belief that being gay is an “identity disorder” four years ago, explaining that it is a “position that has been universally rejected by science and psychology since the early 1970s.”

Oh, there is a consensus!  Where have we heard that before?

Zoominfo Just Cancelled My Account!

I admit I actually laughed when this appeared on my Blackberry.  It had the subject line “Your Zoominfo inquiry” and the body said.

Your ZoomInfo account has been deactivated. ZoomInfo's Terms of Service require users to agree that they will not "impersonate any person or entity or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent" their affiliation with a person or entity, and our records show that you have violated these terms. You can view our Terms of Service at this link: http://content.zoominfo.com/About2/AboutUs/index.php/terms-of-service

Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

[name redacted]

Product Support

Zoom Information, Inc.

In case this email does not fully answer your question, or you would like to contact us for any reason, simply reply to this email.

Reference number: [redacted reference number] Please use this ticket number in any correspondence with us.

Now that was completely fair.  I am not Tom Petty.  But I wrote back saying why I created the profile and then saying:

Now your company has claimed that Christine O'Donnell has verified her profile on your site.  So I am asking you to reveal enough information to prove she really verified it.  Namely, I want you to release the email address associated with that profile, and even the IP address, if that information is available.  If not to me, then to an appropriately skeptical reporter.

As it is, the only evidence that Ms. O'Donnell actually created that profile is your company's word.  Given that this sort of thing might decide an election, you have a duty to share this information.

I’ll keep you posted.

Update: Zoominfo responded sending me a link to the original press release on the subject.  I wrote back asking, more or less, why don’t you just release the email?  Again, I will keep you posted.

Update:  And this is hilarious...  The fake profile is still up, I guess twitching like a newly decapitated chicken.  Heh.

Update: Another response:

Contrary to your statement, we have not heard from Christine O'Donnell about the ZoomInfo profile in her name. You may be thinking about the public comments made regarding the LinkedIn profile in her name. ZoomInfo has no relationship with LinkedIn and the profiles were created independently on our respective websites.

ZoomInfo will cooperate with legal authorities who ask for the email address of the registrant. The ZoomInfo privacy policy reads as follows:

Disclosures under Law

We make every effort to preserve user privacy. We cooperate with legal authorities when we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on ZoomInfo.

Mmm, I am 90% sure she disavowed that one too.  But I will find out.  Truly, I am treating this as open source, right now.

Update: Dustin over at Patterico points out that O’Donnell denied it well enough for press purposes, here:

"I know I never created a LinkedIn profile for myself," O'Donnell said. "I don't even know what Zoom is."

I will ask if that is good enough for zoominfo’s purposes.  It honestly might not be.  But at least we can say that, yes, that is a denial.  I love how the internet is so open source that way.

Final Update: I won’t bore you with a full quote, but the short version is that since Christine O’Donnell didn’t personally contact them, they don’t feel comfortable releasing that information.  Fair enough.  We’ll see what happens.

What Does Zoominfo’s “User Verified” Tag Really Mean? (Answer: Not Much)

Update:  Zoominfo account terminated!  See here for details.

A few weeks ago Christine O’Donnell was accused of putting up a linkedin page with...  well, an inflated resume would seem like the kind way to put it.  She claimed it was fake and Lindedin took it down, without taking a stand on the authorship of the original.

Then another popped up using Zoominfo, and a lot was made of the fact it was “user verified.”  So I wondered, well, just how much went into user verification?

I can tell you the answer, now: pretty much nothing.  Take a look, for instance, at this profile for “Mr. Thomas Petty.”  Every word of it was written by me (leaving out web references that are automatically gathered).  I am not Tom Petty.  And it says “user verified.”  So the obviously fake profile was allowed to stay up there since September 30 and no one cares.

How did I do it?  Simple, I registered, using my AaronJW72@gmail.com address.  That's right, I used a name that very obviously was NOT Tom Petty.  That’s all the verification they required.

Does it exonerate Christine O’Donnell?  Nope.  Does it erase other problems?  Nope.  But it’s one more piece of the puzzle.

So Zoominfo, its time to step up.  Disclose the email address used to verify this account.  If not to us, at least to an appropriately skeptical reporter.  [Update: And giving us the IP address would be nice, too.]

Also screen cap after the break, in case Zoominfo decided to disappear this little embarrassment.

Awesome—James Hetfield of Metallica Says is Proud They Use His Music to Make Terrorists Talk; and is O'Donnell a Headbanger?

This is an old story, but awesome:

Metallica frontman James Hetfield is rather proud his band's music was played at top volume to break down the resistance of Guantanamo detainees under interrogation. "It’s strong, it’s music that’s powerful,” he told an interviewer from a German TV network. “It represents something that they don’t like—maybe freedom, aggression—I don’t know. Freedom of speech."

But he added that he was also "kind of bummed about it" because of his belief that politics and music don't mix. Several American musicians opposed to the use of their music on Gitmo prisoners recently joined a call demanding that the federal government release documents on the practice.

Um, no, Newser, that sounds more like he is saying that the musicians should stay out of the debate.

Meanwhile, Christine O’Donnell made me think of an old Metallica song.  Her recent ad is entitled “I’m you” and like when the President said that bit about people talking about him “like a dog” it made me think of a song.  I finally remembered what the song was just a few minutes ago: “Sad But True:”

Quote of the Day

I think James Taranto has just the right response to the breathless concern that Christine O’Donnell once spoke out against masturbation:

Don Surber ... notes that O'Donnell's victory has driven the left to "lunacy." New York magazine complains that she's "not a big fan of evolution." TalkingPointsMemo.com accuses her of being "anti-masturbation." Seriously, anti-masturbation! These liberals really have a government program for everything. There's nothing they think Americans can do for themselves.

Hey, look I very profoundly disagree with her level of extreme chastity.  And I doubt she can actually be that chaste.  But, really, what does this have to do with being a Senator?