AP: Still misreporting Kyoto
posted at 7:58 am on April 2, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
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This almost became its own category at Captain’s Quarters, as the AP has never reported the story of the Kyoto treaty in the US correctly. Yesterday, Chelsea Clinton gave them yet another opportunity to correct their record when she also blamed George Bush rather than her father for the bill’s failure to win approval. However, once again, the layers of fact-checkers and editors failed to correct the reporting (via Instapundit):
Chelsea Clinton returned Monday to North Carolina, telling college students that the world will “breathe a sigh of relief” once President Bush leaves office. Clinton spoke Monday during a town hall meeting with students at North Carolina State University. She later moved on to Peace College in Raleigh to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Clinton told about 250 people at N.C. State that her mother, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, would work to repair the nation’s reputation abroad.
“I think the world will breathe a sigh of relief when this president is gone,” Clinton said, criticizing Bush for pulling out of various accordings, including the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.
Chelsea needs to look closer to home. Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto “accordings” — perhaps the AP meant “treaties”? — but never submitted it to the Senate for ratification. In 1997, as a response to the Clinton administration’s action, the Senate voted 95-0, with such Democratic stalwarts as Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer among them, to issue a sense of the Senate resolution rejecting Kyoto. The resolution was sponsored by Chuck Hagel and Robert Byrd. Even John McCain rejected it.
Bill Clinton never bothered to try for ratification. The “according” sat on his desk from 1998 to the end of his term. The Bush administration merely reflected the unanimous will of the Senate when he rejected the treaty — not because he didn’t support emission control, but because he wanted an end to the exemption for India, China, and other developing nations. That was the explicit grounds for the Hagel-Byrd resolution, and to this day remains a key flaw in the Kyoto Protocol.
Contrary to the AP’s terrible reporting on this subject, this data is easily found through a secret process called research. Wikipedia has a pretty decent entry on the subject, and even an environmental advocacy group gets its facts straight. Instead, the AP allows its reporters to repeat thoroughly debunked memes without ever acknowledging their errors. At a certain point, it stops looking like errors and more like deliberate dissemination of political propaganda.