Google Puts Laughing Bush by Headline ‘Children May Lose Out On Insurance’

Whether an accident or intentional, the placing of a picture of President George W. Bush laughing next to the headline "Children May Lose On Insurance" is rather deplorable, especially since the picture was not from the article in question.

However, that's what occurred at Google News' Health section Wednesday morning when the featured article was the Boston Globe's piece by Alice Dembner discussing how "[t]housands of Massachusetts children from low-income families could be denied health insurance under new rules imposed by the Bush administration late last week."

Yet, for some reason, the picture above right, from an article published Tuesday at the website OverTheLimit, was placed next to the Globe's headline, and was actually about a story in the New York Times Monday (emphasis added, h/t reader Lloyd Hohn):

The Bush administration has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for states to extend health coverage to children in middle-income families, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Makes one wonder how this could have been accidental when the article with the picture in question actually was published a day before the featured piece, dontcha think?

Update (Ken Shepherd, 11:24): Below are the picture as captured from Google News and the teaser headline and blurb as Sheppard saw them earlier today. You'll also find some thoughts of mine I decided to fold into Sheppard's post in this update.

You'll notice the photo credit is for the Web site OverTheLimit.info. OverTheLimit's "about us" section describes the mission of the news site:

OverTheLimit is an idependent [sic] online news services covering with the latest news from the United States and around the world.

Unlike other news services, OverTheLimit only offers the news which for one reason-or-another seem to be “over the top.”

The majority of our news is provided by staff writers who are all experts in their respective fields. Our journalists range in age and experience, but all are dedicated to delivering interesting news pieces.

OverTheLimit's coverage of the SCHIP debate certainly skewed leftward. Here's an excerpt from OTL's August 21 article, "The Bush administration makes it difficult for states to extend health coverage to children" which makes it clear the editors feel the Bush administration's position on SCHIP is "over the top" (portions in bold are my emphasis):

The Bush administration has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for states to extend health coverage to children in middle-income families, The New York Times reported on Monday.

On Friday evening, with Congress out of town on its summer recess and Americans heading into a mid-August weekend, the Bush administration sent a message to the states: The federal government will make it tougher for a national children’s insurance program to cover the offspring of middle-income families.

Silly me. I thought the idea of the federal program was to cover children in low-income, not middle-class families. That being the case, means testing to keep the coverage limited to those children and save money might be worthwhile.

But what fun would it be to report THAT side of the story?