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The Associated Press is increasingly becoming a politically motivated outlet for news the Left can use. This article on the testimony of Vice President Dick Cheney's former press aide at the Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial is yet another confirming piece of evidence.

Despite the writer's attempts to paint the testimony as earth-shaking and extremely damaging, if not detailing criminal activity: note reference to Nixon era, nothing Cathie Martin outlined or detailed in her testimony is any different from what any other Administration, Washington politician, or large corporation does in working with the media every day. Nothing Martin revealed in her testimony was news, groundbreaking, or even innovative. It was, pure and simple, press secretary operations. Operations, we should add, that were perfected by the Clinton White House.

Perhaps the notion of a White House working with "favored" media outlets is shocking to the AP, because it has taken such a venomous and selective approach to the Bush Administration and is not viewed as an outlet capable of fairly reporting on events. The scandal involving AP's use of a still-possibly-fake source of anti-American information in Iraq is one example. Another is AP's decision to go outside of traditional hiring pools to bring in reporters with set agendas. Recently, according to sources inside the wire service, AP hired at least one reporter from Fred Wertheimer's left-wing organization, Democracy 21, which targets corporations for their involvement in the political arena.

Recent AP wire copy we've monitored shows Democracy 21's influence: in coverage of various companies making news in Washington, AP includes how much money - if any - senior executives of a corporation gave to Republicans, with nary a mention of donations made to Democrats. Industry coverage has provided similar information.

As for the Libby trial, last week was a good one for Libby, and a bad one for U.S. Attorney Pat Fitzgerald. The Justice Department has been spending its time the past three months forcing out good, conservative USA's. Perhaps AG Alberto Gonzales should have done Fitzgerald a favor and pushed him out the door too.

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