It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

UPDATE ON "IMMINENT THREAT" I posted earlier a link to a collection of speeches and references compiled by the Center for American Progress which makes the case that Bush and company did indeed declare Iraq to be an "imminent threat" to the U.S. Turns out that the eagle eyes at Spinsanity has caught the Center in at least one blatant distortion.

A new myth is making its way through the media: that White House press secretary Scott McClellan said "This is about an imminent threat" about the Iraq war during a press briefing last February. This tall tale, first created by the liberal Center for American Progress, has been repeated several times by journalists who failed to check their facts.

As we showed last week, McClellan was actually talking about Iraq potentially posing an "imminent threat" to Turkey if a war started, which would justify invoking the NATO charter and allowing alliance members to help defend Turkey. But analysts at the Center for American Progress inaccurately claimed in their January 29 e-mail newsletter that McClellan made that statement as a reason why "NATO should go along with the Administration's Iraq war." (CAP has yet to correct the record.)

One distortion does not necessarily destroy CAP's entire case, but it does make me a bit more skeptical. Was this just the result of shoddy fact-checking or an arrogant disregard for the audience?