The Associated Press is totally in bed with John McCain! How else to explain their willingness to shoot off stories trampling over accuracy in favor of falling in line with the republican’s campaign directives?

Take this AP lede: “The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq.”

Notice anything wrong with it? How about the little fact that they incorporated McCain’s spin into the factual portion of that statement?

It seems the AP has fallen for the McCain campaign’s and the RNC’s effort to prevent anyone from using McCain’s own words against him during the 2008 presidential campaign. As noted earlier, what the McCain campaign is pushing for here is a standard in which any negative ad targeting McCain must be delivered with the McCain camp’s own spin included in order to be within bounds — a standard few politicians, to say the least, have ever been granted. And even though the political press has been highly indulgent of the McCain campaign on this issue, I don’t think I’ve seen any news organization so egregiously buy into McCain’s false statements as the Associated Press.

The AP article lede reads: “The Republican National Committee demanded Monday that television networks stop running a television ad by the Democratic Party that falsely suggests John McCain wants a 100-year war in Iraq.”

So, as you can see, the AP begins by stating as fact the McCain camp’s claim that the ad is false. Then it actually directly misstates what the ad says. [TPM]