The AP's Matt Kelley has a story out today on the connection between fundraisers for the two major party candidates and possibly illegal dealings with Iran and Iraq. In the article, using the same "on one hand, on the other hand" style of bogus reporting, Kelley implies that the two sides are equally at fault. At least that's how I read it. Here's a sample:

More than two dozen top fund-raisers for President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry are current or former senior managers of companies punished for trading with Iran or Saddam Hussein's Iraq — including the chairman of Bush's Homeland Security Advisory Committee and Kerry's fund-raising chairman.

Both candidates say they want the United States to hunt down and kill or capture terrorists. They say those who harbor and finance terrorists are just as guilty. Bush famously described Iran, Saddam's Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil" threatening to give terrorists weapons of mass destruction.

But the tough talk doesn't address the role of American companies that do business, intentionally or not, with countries such as Iran on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Nineteen people who have raised more than $100,000 for Bush are current or former executives or directors of a dozen firms fined for transactions with Iran and Iraq during the past decade, government records show. Nine top Kerry fund-raisers work or worked for five of those companies. All held their respective positions when some or all of the disputed transactions took place.

Link.

That seems pretty straight forward, no? Now lets look at the graphic for the story, which paints an entirely different story.



It's not even close. Bush is so much closer to these groups than Kerry, by a factor of almost five, and that doesn't count connections such as Halliburton subsidiaries' dealings with Iran in the 1990s. If this issue weren't so serious, this horrible reporting might actually be funny.

The fact is, though, that it's not funny--it's dangerous. Our media pretends to be objective while at the same time completely distorts the facts to make sure to be "fair" to each side. The only problem with this tactic is that it is not fair to the American people.