http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/06/15/BL2005061500535_pf.html

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Josh Marshall is exercised about this front-page Washington Post article by Dan Eggen and Julie Tate.
"The upshot of the piece is fairly straightforward. In the push for the renewal of the Patriot Act, the president and other administration officials have been publicly and volubly claiming that the administration's tough anti-terrorism tactics have resulted in some 400 terrorism-related indictments, with more than half of those leading to convictions.
"Only, as Eggen and Tate point out, that's not true.
"The president is telling people his administration has nabbed some 400 terrorists. But actually the overwhelming majority of the cases don't involve terrorists in any way. They're people who got swept up in this or that terrorist investigation and then got nabbed for some immigration violation or false statement to investigators."
Marshall is concerned enough that he continues the conversation at his new TPM Cafe "The Post authors used the phrase 'misleading at best' to characterize a claim that really amounted to a deliberate misstatement of fact. In response I received this note from a staff writer at a well-known regional daily in the US. . . .
"This is a response to your criticism of journalists who don't call a lie a lie. As a journalist myself, I'm sensitive to this. I agree we can do better and not offer false equivalence, like saying there's a scientific debate over evolution and intelligent design when there is no scientific debate, only a political one. During the recent presidential campaign, reporters could have perhaps been more forceful in their language dealing with campaign statements and their factuality. But I think you're asking too much of reporters to label something as lies when its just misleading, even if highly so. In this case, George Bush's statement is factually defensible, but meant to give a false impression."

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