***TWO UPDATES, including the response from AP's Ron Fournier, at the end of this post.***

Friday evening the Associated Press (AP) issued an un-bylined story which was nothing more than a stenographic reprint of the latest dishonest Democratic attack on talk radio host Rush Limbaugh. 

The Friday story apparently reflected zero research into the charge levied by Brian Wolff, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).  The AP merely quoted Rush out of context - just as the DCCC had - and then served him up as a piñata for Wolff to pummel.

The AP cites Rush as having said that Congress's current push for socialist health care will "(b)efore it's all over ... be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care bill." This allowed the AP to serve up Wolff's whacks on Limbaugh; Wolff called Limbaugh's remark "outrageous and reprehensible."

Had the AP done ANY journalistic due diligence, they would have found this January 13 story from Fox News, quoting a spokeswoman for one of the architects of a national health care bill who said that any legislation that emerges would be named after Kennedy. 

More from the Fox story:

As NewsBusters reported earlier, the Associated Press's Ron Fournier published a surprisingly accurate analysis of presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's decision to tap Joe Biden as his running mate.

Not surprisingly, the far-left organization MoveOn -- never happy when a mainstream media outlet has the nerve to actually say anything bad about a liberal -- has posted a strongly-worded rebuttal at its website that repeatedly asks readers to send e-mail messages to the wire service warning that "the public's faith in the 160-year-old AP will be gone if Ron Fournier is allowed to continue his slanted articles against Democrats and for McCain."

I kid you not:

Here's something you don't see every day: an Associated Press writer actually publishing something negative about a Democrat...let alone one named Obama.

But, there it was Saturday, with a headline even more curious: "Analysis: Biden Pick Shows Lack of Confidence."

The Obamessiah lacks confidence? Such wrote Ron Fournier (emphasis added, photo courtesy AP):

For those unfamiliar, since May of this year the Associated Press has had a new Washington Bureau Chief, a past AP reporter named Ron Fournier. According to Politico, the previous chief was pushed out to make room for Fournier in a "hard-feelings shake-up" with the old chief left worried that Fournier might "destroy" the AP. A pretty stark assessment, of course, but not necessarily all sour grapes from the passing chief because there is a legitimate reason for her to worry about Fournier. You see, Fournier has decided that a more hard-charging, opinion oriented style of writing is the new direction the AP should take in this new Internet age and it's a direction that makes the AP's past bias even more pronounced.

Former chief, Sandy Johnson, is a bit worried about Fournier's new direction. “I loved the Washington bureau. I just hope he doesn’t destroy it,” she is quoted as telling the Politico. It seems she has reason to worry.

As NewsBusters has been reporting, media are finally lining up to bash Hillary Clinton for her recent gaffe concerning fictitious sniper fire when she visited Bosnia in 1996.

Next to take the gloves off was the Associated Press's Ron Fournier who deliciously likened this misstatement during a presidential campaign to Al Gore implying in 2000 that he invented the Internet.

Get yourself a fresh cup of coffee, kick your feet up on the desk, and prepare yourself for some unexpected hits that came early and often in Fournier's article published Tuesday evening (emphasis added throughout):

After the Beltway primaries on Tuesday, the Associated Press's Ron Fournier compiled a different kind of Clinton Enemies List.

No, not the people and groups Bill and Hillary consider to be their enemies.

Instead, in "Chickens Come Home to Roost," Fournier listed the types of Democratic Convention superdelegates who have been unhappy with the Clintons for as many as 16 years:

..... they are not all super fans of the Clintons.

Some are labor leaders still angry that Bill Clinton championed the North American Free Trade Agreement as part of his centrist agenda.

Some are social activists who lobbied unsuccessfully to get him to veto welfare reform legislation, a talking point for his 1996 re-election campaign.

Some served in Congress when the Clintons dismissed their advice on health care reform in 1993. Some called her a bully at the time.

Here's an oldie but a goodie. Well, not a goodie, but this is instructive when it comes to examining liberal bias in the Associated Press: Ron "Authenticity" Fournier from June 2007 defending his liberal biases as "accountability journalism." (h/t NewsBusters fan motherbelt)

In an Associated Press newsletter, Fournier defended what he called "Accountability Journalism" as a news reporting format that "[liberates] reporters and the truth." (emphasis mine):

The ink was barely dry on the Michigan primary results when the Associated Press circulated an "On Deadline" column from political reporter Ron Fournier headlined "Mitt Won, Authenticity Lost." Fournier savaged Mitt Romney for pandering to Michigan voters and demonstrating he is "the most malleable — and least credible — major presidential candidate." Fournier complained that John McCain "deserved a better result," and that "The man who spoke hard truths to Michigan lost."

So much for journalists not taking sides. Here's how the Fournier news analysis began:

WASHINGTON - Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan was a defeat for authenticity in politics.

The former Massachusetts governor pandered to voters, distorted his opponents' record and continued to show why he's the most malleable — and least credible — major presidential candidate.

And it worked.