Did you think That One would need to be sworn in before he started breaking promises, to children, in front of TV cameras? It was all right there in front of Steve Kroft's face on 60 Minutes tonight, but he just smiled, from the tank. The "emotive" Associated Press, though, noticed Obama changed his tune on the show: The president-elect promised his daughters in his victory speech that a new puppy was "coming with us to the White House." Yet all of a sudden on 60 Minutes it's coming only after Obama gets "settled" in the White House — "late winter, early spring." Watch hope get sucker-punched, after the jump.

Barack Obama just visited the White House! He's the next president, so he's required by tradition to meet the guy still squatting there through the end of the year. They pose for pictures, then disappear into the Oval Office for a private talk about Russia and Iran and the helicopter button and how the White House Coke machine is free and how you get to call the Redskins and call your own plays that they have to run every Sunday during the season. In other words, no news. The fun stuff doesn't get leaked out for months, sometimes years after both guys are safely out of the office. So how did everyone cover this important event? With babbling about symbolism and historic blah blah and the weather today.

As recently as the mid-1980s, the newspapers that ostensibly own the Associated Press constituted 50 percent of its revenue. Over the past decade, with the explosion of syndicated news on wesbites and the proliferation of cable news channel, cashflows have come increasingly from new media customers, who tend to favor more soft news coverage on topics like entertainment and lifestyle. Smell like a recipe for disastrous internal strife? Funny, because that's exactly how it's turning out! It was one thing when the editor of Pittsburgh Post-Gazette likened AP's CEO to a Soviet apparatchik this past April. But now even the insane revolutionaries at Sam Zell's Tribune Company are staging a mutiny, moving to cancel the wire and saying AP is charging higher prices for less hard-news (think state and local) content:

The new Associated Press guidelines on election coverage have been controversial, due mostly to the role of Washington Bureau Chief Ron Fournier, a probable Republican and admirer of John McCain. Fournier's new rules allow more of a reporter's voice in wire reports, less caging about "fairness", and generally ask that AP writers say it like it is. What that led to earlier this year annoyed liberals to no end. But at some point the race shifted in Obama's favor, and the AP followed suit. Last month they ran a devastating analysis piece on how John McCain lies about everything—that piece was instrumental in changing the McCain media narrative for good. But the selection of Sarah Palin has really sent the wire service right into the famous tank. This weekend they called Palin a big racist! The headline: Analysis: Palin's words carry racial tinge. AP writer Douglass K. Daniel says Palin's new post-debate smear-y stump speech was basically disgusting. The speech (a second draft was just released for use today by the way!) accuses Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would destroy our own country," a veiled reference to former Weatherman Bill Ayers but left vague enough to insinuate, say, Osama bin Laden. In other words, Palin is now a big cute racist email forward disguised as a candidate for Vice President. But because no one takes her seriously at all anymore, all she'll manage to do is hurt McCain's credibility even more, and leave him even more open to charges of acting dishonorably. And he'll get even angrier! By the third debate (if McCain shows up) he won't even shake Obama's hand. Just watch! Previously: The AP wrote the best-lead sentence-ever on Governor Palin: "ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Less than a week after balking at the Alaska Legislature's investigation into her alleged abuse of power, Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday indicated she will cooperate with a separate probe run by people she can fire."

So the press was entirely shut out of Sarah Palin's magical journey through the UN today. They are making up for it by being quietly bitchy. The headlines: "Palin meets her first world leaders in New York." (You know, from first world countries like Afghanistan!) And here is the most sarcastic Associated Press lead sentence ever:

The Associated Press reports it was contacted by the Secret Service yesterday and "asked for copies of the leaked [Sarah Palin] e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply." Wait, why is the Secret Service asking AP for the emails? Do they not know how to use Google? The emails are here, guys, or you can see if wikileaks is back up or try the ones on the Huffington Post. Now please, leave the poor wretches at AP alone so they can resume encouraging you to Keep Up The Fight and crafting ridiculous accordion metaphors. [AP]

Ron Fournier, the new Associated Press Washington Bureau Chief? Definitely a tool, possibly a Republican. Some of the AP campaign coverage this season? Annoying at best, misleading at worst. But recently liberals (led by the usually serious Talking Points Memo) have all but declared the Associated Press an arm of the John McCain communications office. Well we can seek out and link to only the AP dispatches that fit our preferred spin too, guys! Today the wire sent out a remarkable analysis piece on how the McCain campaign just lies, all the time, about everything. And everyone calls them on their lies, and "fact checks" them, but it doesn't matter, because they don't care. And the AP under Fournier has actually done a better job with this fact-checking than lots of other outlets. The AP has no compunction about explicitly reporting that a statement is deliberately misleading, even if they sometimes shy away from the word "lie." Take a look:

The general reaction to last night's Obama speech has been, uh, effusive. Republicans were left speechless. Even GOP kneecapper Alex Castellanos seemed taken aback. The criticisms? Obama was maybe too focused on a Clintonian laundry list of issues, debased himself by attacking McCain, too meat-and-potatoes and not enough soaring rhetoric. So it only makes sense that the Associated Press headline is "Analysis: Obama spares details, keeps up attacks." Wait, what? That is the opposite of everyone else's interpretation! It gets better, in a "written hours before the speech was delivered" way!

Here's the Washington Post accidentally reporting a Congresswoman's death four hours before it actually happened. Whoops! Guess they got burned by their "Democratic source." So did the Associated Press. The Post is the paper that so distrusted the National Enquirer's reporting it refused to even discuss John Edwards' affairs in its pages. The AP is the news service whose "trusted, authoritative voice" would set it apart in "a realm in which gossip and innuendo abound." Both publications are arrogant and stupid, but points to AP for writing a story about its arrogance and stupidity instead of trying to blame the Cleveland Plain Dealer like the Post did, The End. [AP]

• Judith Regan has been slapped with a suit by the law firm that repped her in her spat with News Corp. [NYDN]

This will please Politico. (And our commenters!) Ron Fournier, who got in trouble recently for being too friendly to Karl Rove a couple years ago and also for turning down a job offer a couple years ago is now the official Washington bureau chief for the Associated Press. He was just acting chief before. Now he'll maliciously add pro-McCain bias to AP stories for real. [FishbowlNY]

Political journalist Ron Fournier took his lumps recently for an ill-advisedly friendly email he sent to Bush brain Karl Rove back in 2004. Today, the Politico reveals that Fournier was this close to getting a "senior advisory role" in the McCain campaign, probably as some sort of fancy flack. He turned it down and went back to the AP instead, but now this has been reported and it's fueling the anti-AP fire. They're in bed with McCain! It's like there are these two gigantic beds in DC and everyone in the press is lying down on them with a candidate. Or it's like bullshit. This story, and the last one, are pointless except as part of some weird campaign to embarrass Ron Fournier. Fournier quit the Associated Press a couple years back to start something terrible called HotSoup.com, a sort of message board social networking political blog thing that was supposed to revolutionize everything ever. A couple weeks later (at least it felt like a couple weeks) he was back at the AP as their online political editor. (He's now the Washington bureau chief.) He's actually done a little bit of good work at the AP, stripping away some of the obtuse house style and inserting some liveliness into wire reports, but now all the liberals will decide the AP is a den of McCainiacs and boycott them or something. We ask you: why is a job offer from two years ago news? That's all this is. A declined job offer. Politico even twists the knife further:

You might remember Jesse Washington: He's the Associated Press editor who last year issued an ill-conceived ban on Paris Hilton news that, after much to-do, was lifted in less than two weeks. Within a year, the AP went entirely in the other direction, telling staffers "everything involving [celebrity] Britney [Spears] is a big deal," a reversal Washington awkwardly, and overenthusiastically, joined, again making waves with the announcement that the wire had already written Spears' obituary amid the singer's psychiatric breakdowns. He also rather rashly said in a video interview that "if you want to know that it really happened [in celebrity news], then you're going to have to go to AP... If we put it out, you can bet the house on it that it really happened." That hyperbolic claim was undermined a few months later, when a source claimed "the AP misquoted me" as saying actor Paul Newman had cancer. Having displayed such a nuanced touch, what might Washington's future be at the wire service? Why, covering the sensitive topic of race and ethnicity! In fact, Washington beat out 448 other applicants for the position of national writer on such matters, according to an AP staff memo from U.S. News Managing Editor Mike Oreskes:

The Associated Press' Washington bueau chief, Ron Fournier, has been pissing various people off with his "accountability journalism" since he was installed in May. His bitter former boss at AP trashed his credentials to Politico, and influential website Talking Points Memo wondered if he wasn't responsible for the AP's "atrocious campaign coverage this year." Fournier has said his new approach, which involves taking more pointed stands within news articles, is driven by an in-depth examination of the facts, while critics say it is simply biased, advocacy journalism dressed up in new clothes. Fournier has had the backing of top AP brass in New York, but that may soon change, given the following recap of a 2004 email from Fournier to then-White House senior advisor Karl Rove, published this evening on TPM:

"The editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for example, likened AP President and Chief Executive Tom Curley to the secretary-general of the Politburo at a convention in April... While the AP's 1,500 member newspapers still own the organization... they account for only 27% of AP revenue, down from more than 50% in the mid-1980s." [WSJ]

The email reprinted above is the founding document of the beloved Media Bloggers Association, that venerable organization that bloggers across the world recognize as the leading bullshit pretend front for one self-aggrandizing tool to get on TV all the time and pretend to represent citizen journalists. That they recognize now, anyway, because until the MBA inserted itself into the Associated Press blog dispute, no one had heard of the four-year-old organization. Though Robert Cox, the guy behind the MBA, was perhaps more well-known as the notorious right-wing crank and annoying tool behind Olbermann Watch, the blog that disagrees with everything MSNBC host Keith Olbermann says. Come read the email that started it all, and learn so much more about Robert Cox.

Saul Hansell quoted Digg CEO Jay Adelson defending the Associated Press (of which Hansell's publication the Times is a member). TechCrunch's Michael Arrington freaked out, natch. Adelson then attempted to further explain his complicated position, trying to be diplomatic. Yawn. As we've said before, and will say again, exercise your fair use rights under the law and shut up, because giving the AP attention just feeds its argument and therefore reinforces its position. Moving on:

Recently, we met the Media Bloggers Association, supposedly a group that provides legal aid to bloggers and one that is currently negotiating with the Associated Press to establish guidlines for reposting tiny snippets of their copy. Our night editor asked who died and made them Internet Kings, and they responded with a bitchy email that said we didn't even email them or anything. Then a couple enterprising commenters did some more research (and not the "email them for comment" kind either-what is up with the internet?). And now we have reason to be suspicious of everything the MBA and their head troll Roger Cox have to say. They might just be a money-making scam!

The Associated Press wants us bloggers to purchase a license from them for permission to quote 5 words from their stories. Ok guys, good luck with that. Recently they threatened some D-list bloggers in order to put the fear of god into everyone, but it backfired, naturally. So they're trying the good cop approach-they will not sue bloggers, they promise, and they will meet with some blogger advocacy group to hammer out an agreement. These new guidelines will be drawn up in consultation with something called the Media Bloggers Association, a.k.a. The Justice Blogiety of America, a.k.a. the Congress of Blogustrial Organizations. It's a powerless group of funny-looking nerds with no ties to mainstream "blogging" as we know it. Amusingly, after Night Editor Ryan Tate made fun of them last night, they sent him a wounded email asking why he didn't call them for comment first. OMG guys, you represent bloggers? Don't you know we never pick up phones? That email is attached, and more fun with the M.B.A. is below.

As reported previously, the Associated Press is attempting to define "guidelines" to allow bloggers to quote its content, even though substantial quoting is already allowed under federal copyright law. The wire service will arrive at these guidelines after meeting with the Media Bloggers Association. And who are they? It's hard to say, even after reading the group's site and searching for more information elsewhere on the Web.