AP Reporter Honors Obama as 'Fact-Checker-in-Chief' on Health Care

Associated Press reporter Philip Elliott has a new honorific title for President Obama: "Fact-Checker-in-Chief." In a Thursday filing, Elliott suggested Obama apparently has all the facts, and his conservative opponents are the constant myth-spreaders.

On the defensive, Obama is embracing a new role of fact checker-in-chief, trying to correct untrue claims such as that the proposals would provide health care for illegal immigrants, create "death panels" or pay for abortions with taxpayer dollars. Aides say the situation has left Obama exasperated.

This isn’t the first time Elliott has used that flattering lingo. On August 12, he also insisted the president favored facts and his opponents were falsifiers:

Obama assailed "wild misrepresentations" of his health care plan Tuesday during a town hall-style meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., taking on the role of fact-checker-in-chief for his top domestic priority.

That would seem to contradict the articles of other writers at the Associated Press, such as Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, who began an August 5 article by declaring taxpayers would fund abortions in a "public option" insurance plan:

Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.

Would Elliott suggest his AP colleague is "exasperating" the president with "wild misrepresentations"?Elliott's title boldly suggests that the president never mangles a fact in his arguments in favor of nationalized health care.