Raleigh News and Observer columnist gets facts wrong and leaves others out (Part 2)

I posted here concerning some errors of commission and omission in News and Observer political reporter and columnist Rob Christensen’s June 12 column. This post concerns his June 19 column.

According to Christensen, North Carolina Republican U. S. House Rep. Walter B. Jones, who last week co-sponsored a resolution calling for the President to begin troop withdrawal from Iraq beginning no later than October, 2006, is “now questioning the wisdom of the war.”

“Speaking out against the war is a politically risky move for Jones, a six-term congressman representing a district that includes the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.,” Christensen says.

Jones has a different view of what he’s doing. He expressed it in a June 15 press release which he posted on his web site. Jones said in part:

In recent days there has been considerable press coverage on my position on America’s presence in Iraq. Despite what some media accounts have said, I want to make it crystal clear that I am NOT in favor of any immediate withdrawal nor do I support setting an end date at which time all troops must be out of Iraq.

That doesn’t sound like someone “speaking out against the war,” does it?

Christensen says nothing about Jones’s press statement. But he does use Jones’ sponsorship of the resolution to suggest Vietnam redux: “When U.S. Sen. B. Everett Jordan of Alamance County turned against the Vietnam War, you knew the tide of public opinion was shifting.”

And that may be the point of the column. But if that is the case, Christensen should make it in his own name, not Jones'.

Christensen’s column is here.
Jones’ June 15 press statement is here.
The resolution Jones’ is co-sponsoring, H. R. Res. 55, is here.