In the Associated Press’s mostly fawning narrative of how Robert Frances “Beto” O’Rourke addressed crowds of supporters in El Paso, Texas, author Will Weissert tossed in this paragraph:
“We have learned not to fear our differences, but to respect and embrace them,” he told a crowd that waved small American flags and black-and-white signs reading “Viva Beto” while often interrupting their candidate to chant his first name. O’Rourke also spoke at length in his native Spanish, eliciting loud and sustained cheers.
His “native Spanish”? Does Mr. Weissert think that if a non-Latino guy gloms onto a Latino-sounding nickname like “Beto”, it magically confers a background that might attract Latino voters?
Robert Frances O’Rourke is of Irish descent. His language is about as “native Spanish” as mine is native Papuan. But there it was, for everyone to see and digest.
Once the article was out, and people read it, the AP subsequently changed the wording to “spoke at length in Spanish” – as if eliminating “in his native Spanish” eliminated the disinformation readers were given as well.
It, of course, didn’t. That’s an old trick – put it up there, give it maximum exposure, then correct it with an “I’m sorry” (wink, wink).
Fortunately, however, Mark Finkelstein, writing for newsbusters.org, managed to get a screen capture of the original, which you can see by clicking here.
If the AP were still a neutral news organization, I might chalk this up to an inadvertent error. But it is not any such thing, so, instead, I assume this was done intentionally.
Sad that things have come to the point where I think that way. But they have.
I saw this story at Drudge and couldn’t believe it. Also saw this story Pope criticizes building walls to keep migrants out…
For a man that lives in a country with a wall that totally encompasses it he has some nerve. If he weren’t a man of God I would call him a prick.