Specter correction
Glenn Greenwald discusses “The Completely Unreliable Washington Post” and how it impacted his article last Friday about Senator Arlen Specter, about which I commented here. Greenwald notes that
Before I wrote the post, I searched for the actual text of Specter's bill in order to read it myself, but could not find it (Specter's website is one of the worst sites for any Senator, as it is usually a month or more behind). As a result, my post -- as I noted in a Comment -- was based upon the Post's reporting about Specter's bill, rather than my own reading of it.As it now appears, the Post article was simply wrong in what it reported.
[…]
As soon as I realized this morning that my post on Friday was based upon the apparently false premise that Specter's bill contained an amnesty provision, I was mortified and furious that I posted something so inaccurate based upon the Post article. My immediate priority became looking into that error, figuring out what happened, and then posting about it in order to correct the inaccuracy. I would never leave a post uncorrected that I knew was likely inaccurate.
Crooks and Liars has the transcript of Specter and Wolf Blitzer, and a link to the video. In it, Specter states that the WaPo article
was an erroneous report. If anybody has violated the law, they'll be held accountable, both as to criminal conduct and as to civil conduct. And in no way did I promise amnesty or immunity or letting anybody off the hook.
Since my post on Specter was based on Greenwald’s post, and thus on the Washington Post article, I offer the same correction.