At an open NewsBusters thread this morning, commenter "ThisnThat" pointed to a Friday unbylined Associated Press item that twice used the label "ultraconservative" to describe Nevada U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle.
Just for the heck of it, AP also threw in Reid's reference to Angle as being "too extreme," and his parroting of that biennial Democratic falsehood that a GOP candidate is for "privatizing programs for the elderly and veterans."
Meanwhile, the wire service did not tag Reid as an "ultraliberal," or even as a "liberal," even though his 2009 rating with the obviously ultraliberal group Americans for Democratic Action was 95% (large PDF here), one vote short of that organization's definition of "perfection."
Here are excerpts from the AP report:
Obama Campaigns for Reid as Democrats Try to Minimize GOP Gains in Senate
President Obama threw his star power behind the Democrats' embattled Senate leader, who finds himself in a tossup campaign against an ultraconservative tea party favorite in America's most-watched Senate race.
Republicans have made Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid their top target in the Nov. 2 election. The minority party needs to gain 10 seats to wrest control of the Senate from the Democrats, and unseating the most powerful Senate Democrat would deal a major blow to Obama, who reminded supporters of Republican opposition to his agenda.
Reid is tied in the polls with relative unknown Republican Sharron Angle in a race that has attracted millions of dollars from across the nation.
... Republican candidate Angle, campaigning Thursday in Las Vegas with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, urged Reid to "man up" and accept his share of blame for the state's economic woes.
Reid has responded to such attacks by saying Angle like other tea party-backed candidates is too extreme for Nevada voters. He has called her an ally of the special interests and advocate for jettisoning government agencies and privatizing programs for the elderly and veterans that millions of Nevadans rely on.
... The 61-year-old Angle, a former state lawmaker -- like tea party-backed candidates in other states -- defeated a favorite of the state's Republican establishment in the primary election.
Her ultraconservative policies have hurt her in the general election campaign with some moderate Republicans and leaders of the state's gambling industry backing Reid. She has countered by casting Reid as a career politician who lives in a fashionable condominium in Washington and is out of touch with the state he has represented in Congress for decades.
Here's something odd. Even though the story appears at many other publications, it is not being carried at the AP's main web site, as shown here in searches on "Reid Obama" (not in quotes), in which the above story does not surface, and "ultraconservative," which comes up empty. It's almost as if AP wants to conceal the story from many national readers while making sure it gets seen in Nevada.
Oh, and as if anyone expected otherwise, a search on the word "ultraliberal" at the AP's main site comes up empty.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
