Per her bio, Gail Collins at the New York Times "joined the New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page." So she was hanging with the Old Gray Lady in 2003.
The columnist's presence at the paper that year is quite relevant. You see, Ms. Collins has brought up the 1983 story of Seamus, the Mitt Romney family Irish setter, who the presumptive GOP presidential nominee put "into a dog carrier on the roof of his station wagon for a 12-hour trip to Ontario," on dozens of occasions in her Times column in the almost five years since the story first appeared. Yet during those five years, it seems she has never recognized (and if she has, she certainly has not been chastened by) the existence an exceptionally positive dog-related Romney story printed in her employer's own paper on July 8, 2003. It follows the jump (underlines are mine; presented in full for fair use and discussion purposes):
(Click here or on graphic to see a larger version in a separate tab or window)
The Boston Herald's coverage at the time (HT The American Enterprise Institute's American Blog via Hot Air) had a bit more concerning the canine aspect of the story showing that the rescuing Romneys gave McKenzie special consideration:
The rescuing Romneys also managed to snatch the family dog, McKenzie, from a watery grave — grabbing the Scottish terrier first because it was the only passenger without a lifejacket.
“It looked like it wasn’t going to last much longer,” said Josh, who held the waterlogged pooch on the ride back to shore.
Ms. Collins is not the only one whose failures require call-outs.
The story itself is from the Associated Press, which has gleefully played along with the trumped-up dog show protest stories and related Democratic Party-driven histrionics. I haven't seen any such related AP story bring up the 2003 rescue, which occurred 20 years after the Seamus incident.
There are also dozens of New England-based establishment press reporters and editors who learned of and/or ran the Romney family-and-dog rescue story in 2003 (14 stories are still in Google News's archive) who have remained strangely silent for nearly five years while the "Romney treats dogs like dirt" story has grown into a clearly false yet full-blown meme.
The best way to avoid inevitable disappointment is to expect stone-cold silence about the resurfaced rescue story from the clearly negligent parties and then be pleasantly surprised if anything positive happens. In light of the President's boyhood appetite for canine cuisine and the Romney rescue, the only question is if anyone in the press will still have the gall to try and milk a 29 year-old story which has clearly been trumped by one less than a decade old (and only four years old at the time the Seamus story was first raised). My guess is that many will.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
