Flight 253: AP Ignores Own Christmas Dispatch to Pretend Obama's Jan. 2 AQ Involvement Cite Is Important

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In a report time-stamped January 2, the Associated Press's Philip Elliott relayed what was supposedly important news:

Obama cites apparent al-Qaida link in bomb plot

An al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen apparently ordered the Christmas Day plot against a U.S. airliner, training and arming the 23-year-old Nigerian man accused in the failed bombing, President Barack Obama said Saturday.

You don't say?

The story was on the front page of Sunday's Cincinnati Enquirer, and likely many other papers across the nation.

Elliott was also co-author of a piece I cited last week (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) as "deliberately gullible":

Obama wants answers after botched terror attack

That particular Elliott item acts as if Obama received "new information" about "Al Qaeda's plans" that finally, four days after the attack, made the idea that AQ was involved plausible. Anne Kornblut of the Washington Post also played along with the charade ("Administration sees 'some linkage' between Detroit suspect, al-Qaeda").

As shown in my Friday afternoon BizzyBlog post on the topic, Al Qaeda involvement was sufficiently known within hours of the attempted takedown of Flight 253, i.e., on December 25, eight days before Barack Obama's amazing January 2 discovery, as illustrated in two headlines cited there, including this one from AP time-stamped 7:28 p.m. on Christmas Day (story saved at web host for fair use and discussion purposes):

AP sources: Al-Qaida link in failed plane attack

The Christmas Day story was written by Larry Margasak and Lara Jakes. They had some help, as noted at the item's end, including .... guess who:

Jakes reported from Baghdad, Iraq. Randi Berris and Jim Irwin in West Bloomfield, Mich., and Devlin Barrett, Shelley Adler and Joan Lowy in Washington, and Philip Elliott in Oahu, Hawaii, contributed to this report.

The connection to Yemen was also established by Christmas evening.

Elliott, despite his involvement in what was originally written on Christmas (it was largely sanitized in future revisions, which is why the report cited is at my web host, again for fair use and discussion purposes), acts as if the president told the American people something new and important on Saturday. Horse manure.

This is going to be harsh, but I don't know how else to say it: Elliott's January 2 item disgracefully doubles down on disgusting and likely deliberate deception. The Soviet Union's old Pravda couldn't have done it any "better."

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.