Media jumps on Clinton story without checking the facts

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to let myself get pulled into the mud in the battle between these two. But this is typical of the differing treatment they get in the media, and I can't just sit and watch. First Clinton is dragged through the press for her exagerations about her trip to Bosnia. At least she admitted she was wrong and laughed at herself. By now you've probably read and heard that the sad story Hillary Clinton has been telling about a pregnant woman who died after being denied treatment because she couldn't pay the hospital was false. False! I tell you! (That's what all the papers said, so it must be true!)

Uh, not so much. Now from The Washington Post:

For weeks, Clinton repeated an anecdote she heard in Ohio on Feb. 28 involving a young woman who lost her baby and later died because she lacked health insurance and did not have $100 to gain access to a nearby hospital.

But over the weekend, Clinton came under fire when officials at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, after reading about her remarks, demanded that she stop recounting it because the patient, Trina Bechtel, was admitted there and did have insurance.

That part, it turns out, is true. But so is Clinton's claim that Bechtel did not get care at another hospital that wanted a $100 pre-payment before seeing her, according to the young woman's aunt, Lisa Casto. "It's a true story," said Casto, 53.

Casto said her niece, who suffered from preeclampsia during her pregnancy, did not seek care at the first hospital she when she fell ill because she knew she did not have the $100 out-of-pocket she believed she would need to be seen. Instead, she went to O'Bleness Memorial Hospital, where her baby was stillborn. Bechtel was later flown to Columbus and died there. She was 35.

There was a time once when reporters checked the facts of their stories before they went to press. This is admittedly a somewhat complex story of our dysfunctional health care system, but one which could have been checked a little closer before publishing. Instead it was picked up by Hillary hatin' sites such as Huffington Post under the headline: Clinton Under Fire Over False Story Of Health Care Horror ... .

Which amazes me, given the number of times Obama has told much simpler tales full of errors, such as saying that his very existence was due to the marchers in Selma who changed society so that his parents could marry and have children. From his speech:

There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don't tell me I don't have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don't tell me I'm not coming home to Selma, Alabama.

Except that he was born 4 years before the Selma march.

Or how about when he recently tried to establish family ties between the Obamas and the Kennedys by saying his father came to America on a flight payed for by John F. Kennedy. Obama went so far as to say he owed his "'very existence' to the generosity of the Kennedy family."

It's touching. It's profound. It's downright audacious! But it's wrong.

Contrary to Obama's claims in speeches in January at American University and in Selma last year, the Kennedy family did not provide the funding for a September 1959 airlift of 81 Kenyan students to the United States that included Obama's father. According to historical records and interviews with participants, the Kennedys were first approached for support for the program nearly a year later, in July 1960. The family responded with a $100,000 donation, most of which went to pay for a second airlift in September 1960.

No matter ow many times he tells these tall tales, America lets it go. Sure, these details don't change the world. But are they an indication of the man who speaks with a golden tongue? Cane we believe what he says when his stories are so often riddled with errors? I hope his supporters are right, because it certainly does look like he will get the Democratic nomination. But I have to tell you, I have that same feeling in the pit of my stomach when I watched the returns in 2000 and 2004. I hope you people know what you're doing.