For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: how bad is it for Congressional Republicans?

The outlook for the GOP is so grim that party leaders have readily conceded there is no chance they can regain control of the Senate in 2008, even though Democrats' current majority is slim, 51-49. "If you have an R in front of your name, you better run scared," said Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, who says the party will do well if it holds its losses to three or four seats.

Democrats and the media -- as if there's a difference! -- are talking about winning a filibuster-proof majority next January which would give a President Obama -- heaven forbid! -- free rein to advance his agenda. Is this possible, or are press members trying to scare Republicans from the polls thereby manufacturing a self-fulfulling prophecy?

Unbelievably, disgraced newsreader, Dan Rather, claimed at a recent festival that American journalism "has in some ways lost its guts" and that the MSM has "adopted the go-along-to-get-along (attitude)."

As reported by CNETNews.com, Rather was a keynote speaker at the South by Southwest Interactive festival this past weekend where he gave a 2 hour talk on the shape of journalism and the Internet.

One has to wonder to which "gutless" American media he is referring? Is it the same media that was so weak-kneed as to leak damaging national security information, the same media that just "goes along" to undermine the war effort at every opportunity? Is it the same one that goes out of its way to malign the US and Israeli governments? It is that MSM Rather imagines has somehow gone soft?

Last Thursday, I provided Associated Press Media Relations Director Linda Wagner with confirmation that a January 4 Steven R. Hurst article appears to be 180-degrees from the truth. To date, neither Wagner nor any other AP contact has deemed to provide any sort of response. Frankly, I didn't expect one. The Hurst article was a CYA piece written to provide cover for shoddy Associated Press reporting, and it is not in their personal interests to admit that they've been caught apparently fabricating that story from the ground up.

I've thus resorted to contacting several members of the AP Board of Directors with the following letter sent out just moments ago, hoping that they will display the integrity that neither AP reporters nor senior management seem to have any interest in maintaining.

If they decline to investigate this extended "Jayson Blair" moment, then their integrity and credibility as a news organization, to put it mildly, is shot.

Here is a copy of the letter, with links added for context and HTML formatting added:

Bryan Preston at Hot Air, who recently returned from a trip to Iraq with Michelle Malkin, caught the misleading headline (still there) in a story by newly-promoted AP Baghdad news editor Kim Gamel:

The headline conveys the obvious impression that our troops are fighting Iraqi soldiers and not terrorists/"insurgents."

Based on the story that follows, the headline is obviously false.

Bryan thought the headline at the original story had been updated, but that turns out to have been incorrect. Yours truly tipped him, and he noted, that the story is still there in all its ignominy. What's more, he noted, by reviewing Google News results, that the false headline, even if corrected now, has spread around the country and around the world. Further supporting the Pandora's Box nature of the AP's journalistic malpractice, here's a regular Google search on the headline (in quotes) showing that it still generates thousands of hits. And even though most of underlying linked stories appear to have different titles now, some (like this one) still have the original.