Why National Review Loves Jake Tapper

The right-wing National Review posted a long mash note to ABC White House Correspondent Jake Tapper this week, claiming that he "isn’t afraid to go against the grain of the liberal consensus in pursuit of a story." Which stands to reason, since Tapper is the provenance of every lame right-wing hit on Obama throughout the Presidential election right on up to today. John Cole reminisces about a bunch of them (I forgot the one where he thought he smelled smoke on Obama's breath and got the vapors). It continues today.

Check out ABC News’ latest headline on Obama’s Europe trip:

President Obama to Europe: "Sorry About the Bush Years"

The only thing is that I can’t find any evidence that Obama said “sorry about the Bush years.”

My understanding is that it’s a no-no to put something that someone didn’t say between quotation marks, even if it’s a paraphrase.

Within a couple hours, Tapper killed the quotes and wrote: “This headline was mistakenly put in quotations; obviously the president never said that, it was meant to express the sentiment of his remarks. Apologies for any misunderstanding.”

Obviously.

Of course, it's out there now, so the conservative noise machine can continue its claim that anti-American Obama stirred up a hate nest in Europe. All thanks to, you guessed it, Jake Tapper.