D.C. Protests: Associated Press Picks Side

In straight news reporting, the lede is everything. The opening paragraph should carry the gist of the entire article and answer all of the fundamental questions of who, what, when, where and how. Why is questionable, as it can paint a bias on the story or be immediately undetermined.

This weekend, the American capital of Washington, D.C. saw back-to-back gatherings of anti-war and pro-troop rallies. The Associated Press’ lede paragraph for today’s rally in support of the U.S. efforts in Iraq is as follows:

Support for U.S. troops fighting abroad mixed with anger toward anti-war demonstrators at home as hundreds of people, far fewer than organizers had expected, rallied Sunday on the National Mall just a day after a massive protest against the war in Iraq.

My attention is immediately drawn towards the mention of anger. Actually, my first reaction is that I dare you to diagram that rather poorly written sentence. Past that, I’m taken by the mention of anger in the lede. Why? Well, let’s look at the lede from the AP’s coverage of Saturday’s rally.

Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington and other American and European cities.

What? Song and remembrance? No anger?

Well, judging by photoblogging by Michelle Malkin and Davids Medienkritik, I would beg to differ. There seems to have been a great deal of unreported anger at Saturday’s shin dig. Meanwhile, Gateway Pundit followed Saturday’s speeches and seems to have identified a great deal of anger, as well as a great deal of failed leftist talking points.

So why no mention of anger Saturday while it made the lede Sunday? Well, I’ll leave it to one of the best bloggers out there, Jeff Goldstein, to absolutely rip the puff piece that was Saturday’s “news” story by the A.P. Suffice it to say that the A.P. has happily allowed the slant of their writers to overwhelm their supposed straight news reporting.

As the Indepundit allows a Marine in Iraq to point out, this weekend was critical for the home front of the war against the radical Islamist movement and our efforts in Iraq.

Thanks for doing this. The battlefield this weekend will be on the homefront. The only thing that truly concerns me is that the seditionist groups will succeed in causing the American people to lose their will and the enemy will win politically the victory we have denied them militarily.

Let there be no mistake: we are winning here. Morale is outstanding and we are successfully taking the fight to the enemy. You will see a successful referendum in less than 3 weeks and a successfull election in less than 3 months. I see the positive resuts of our actions everyday. The MSM ignores or denigrates almost every piece of positive news, exaggerates every negative and makes the enemy and his actions out to be more than they are.

They absolutely cannot defeat us militarily and have no strategic vision except the destruction of all who oppose them. A strategy based on such a negative is doomed to fail, unless we cut and run. That is the enemy’s only chance to win. The biggest threat we face is a determined enemy who will not quit because, like the Vietnamese they see the possibility of victory because of a perceived willingness to quit at home.

Folks, in the war the Marine describes, the A.P. has long since chosen sides. This weekend, they made it very freakin’ obvious.