Denver, Colorado) Former Congressman Tom Tancredo today slammed the Washington, DC - based political blog POLITICALWIRE.COM for distorting his published comments to Denver television station KDVR to say the exact opposite of what is actually reported in the story.
"POLITICALWIRE ran a story mid-day Monday with the misleading headline, "Tancredo Says Arizona Law Goes Too Far" and referenced an April 24 KDVR (Denver) story. The problem is," says Tancredo, "I never said that and the KDVR story does not say that."
"What I said is that the Arizona law does NOT do what the critics claim, it does not authorize racial profiling, and for that reason, I support it fully," said Tancredo.
"What bothers me especially," said Tancredo, "is the the editor at POLTICALWIRE.COM refused to publish the correction or change the headline when told of the error. The original story may have been just sloppy reporting, but they ought to publish a retraction when an error is demonstrated."
Six hours after the original blog post, the editors agreed only to publish an "update" inserted at the end of the original story but never changed the headline, which had been quoted and repeated on other blogs and on Twitter. The "update" was not published as a correction, only as a statement by a Tancredo spokesman.
"I welcome a healthy debate on the merits of the new Arizona law, but that debate ought to be based on facts and a reading of the law," said Tancredo. "Too many reporters and bloggers are merely repeating the outrageous distortions and claims of critics, they are not looking at the law itself."
"The new Arizona law, SB1070, explicitly forbids racial profiling," Tancredo observed. "Arizona lawmakers are responding to the federal government's uwillingness to secure the borders."