AP Headline: 'Obama Breaks from Bush, Avoids Divisive Stands'

In his first few days as President, Barack Obama issued decrees concerning a terrorist detention center in Guantanamo Bay, abortion, and apparently told Congressional Republicans who they should and shouldn't listen to.

Yet, according to the Associated Press, "he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands."

Makes you wonder what these folks were watching this week, doesn't it, for in a piece astoundingly titled "Obama Breaks from Bush, Avoids Divisive Stands," Liz Sidoti seemed to be reporting from another planet:

Barack Obama opened his presidency by breaking sharply from George W. Bush's unpopular administration, but he mostly avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. He focused instead on fixing the economy, repairing a battered world image and cleaning up government. [...]

Even as Obama made broad pronouncements and signed a stream of executive orders to usher in a new governing era, his actions leave unanswered or unresolved questions, including how he will close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists.

I guess Sidoti doesn't consider this detention facility to be a divisive issue despite the most recent Gallup poll finding 45 percent of the nation feeling it shouldn't be closed with only 35 percent saying it should.

Of course, even this is misleading, for well into the piece, Sidoti admitted such:

Most of what he tackled came in areas where there is agreement across the political spectrum for a new direction, although the country is divided over shuttering Guantanamo.

Hmmm. So in the headline and the opening paragraph, Sidoti led readers to believe that Obama strayed from divisive partisan issues last week. BUT, in paragraph ten, we find out this really isn't the case at all. I guess this is what qualifies as journalism today.

But there's more:

So far, Obama's only real brush with issues that stoke partisan passions came when he revoked a ban on federal funding for international groups that provide or promote abortions. He did that quietly by issuing a memorandum late Friday afternoon. The move was expected; the issue has vacillated between Republican and Democratic presidents.

Well, as previously noted, this clearly wasn't the first issue Obama addressed that stoked partisan passions. I guess by the time Sidoti got to writing paragraph twelve she forgot what she had written two paragraphs prior. Isn't that convenient?

Yet, Sidoti also misrepresented Obama's economic plans as not being divisive. An Ipsos/McClatchy poll released on Inauguration Day found roughly half of the respondents saying the stimulus package currently on the table was either probably or definitely necessary. Sound divisive to you?

Now, add in Obama's supposed suggestion to Congressional Republicans that they stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, and virtually everything done by the new President since Inauguration Day was highly partisan and divisive.

Add it all up, and there's really only one logical conclusion: divisive to the AP means things its writers don't agree with regardless of how the public feels.

Must be nice to have such power, dontcha think?