AP Reporter: Bush White House Uses "Slash-and-Burn Assaults On Its Critics"

October 22nd, 2005 8:52 PM

In an October 19, 2005, article, veteran Associated Press reporter Tom Raum claimed (emphasis added),

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA-leak inquiry is focusing attention on what long has been a Bush White House tactic: slash-and-burn assaults on its critics, particularly those opposed to the president's Iraq war policies.

"Slash-and-burn assaults"? This sounds more like something out of a Chucky or Halloween movie.

Apparently, this is the AP's idea of "news analysis." Yet at at least one place on the Web, Raum's article appears as being just another newswire story. At CNN.com, for example, Raum is not even given a byline, and the piece does not carry any kind of "News analysis" or "Commentary" heading.

Another example of the increasing blur between "news" and "analysis"? It appears so.

Hat tip to Brit Hume's Political Grapevine at Fox News Channel.