Are you all familiar with Associated Press 2.0 - Biased Edition? If not, let me bring you up to speed, via The Politico:

Is Fournier saving or destroying the AP?

In the stories the new boss is encouraging, first-person writing and emotive language are okay.

So is scrapping the stonefaced approach to journalism that accepts politicians’ statements at face value and offers equal treatment to all sides of an argument. Instead, reporters are encouraged to throw away the weasel words and call it like they see it when they think public officials have revealed themselves as phonies or flip-floppers.

As has already occurred:

Even absent his byline, his influence has been evident, as it is in the lead to reporter Liz Sidoti’s June 19 news analysis on the Democratic nominee’s decision to reverse course on public financing: “Barack Obama chose winning over his word.”

Note that no AP writer has written a story yet on any of the many McCain flip-flops and outright lies. I think we can see which way the new AP will lean. (It’s also important to note that Fournier and Karl Rove have a history too.)

I bring all this up because of an AP story I just read that I find quite a bit disturbing:

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Associated Press Writer, Pete Yost, apparently doesn’t want to see another Clinton administration:

Whitewater. The word symbolizes years of legal troubles for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her husband’s presidency. The scandal stoked a $52 million criminal investigation and offered moments of extraordinary spectacle, including the unprecedented grand jury appearance by a first lady.
[...]

Starr’s probe left a legacy of anger among congressional Democrats who saw Whitewater as an example of an out-of-control criminal investigation. Republicans, too, had endured a prolonged independent counsel investigation - Lawrence Walsh’s probe into the Iran-Contra scandal. Congress put its foot down, declaring there would be no more independent counsels. So lawmakers allowed the law that authorized court-appointed prosecutors to lapse.

By the end of 2006, their legal bills paid off, the former president and his presidency’seeking wife had assets of at least $10 million and possibly as much as $50 million with no liabilities.

Whitewater is old news, Mr. Yost. But if bringing up questionable conduct of someone’s past is your forte, might I suggest writing about someone from the republican side of the aisle? Here are some ideas for you:

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