New 'Report' of Barack Obama/Rod Blagojevich Meeting Debunked

Update 2: For the unconvinced, Captain Ed Morrissey agrees that this is KHQA's error, because he's, you know, not a moron. He also tracked down Blago telling the Sun-Times on Nov. 6 that he had not spoken to Obama.

Update: KHQA is compounding its error by standing by its shoddy reporting. A station staffer told me by phone, "There's a clarification on our website, that's all we're going to say."

The "clarification" doesn't address the Nov. 8 story, and does not say what the source of the report was.

The reporters on both stories have not returned requests for comment.

The right wing is desperate to prove that Barack Obama met with Rod Blagojevich about his Senate successor, and they're leaping at mirages in the process.

I'm not sure I understand the impulse, as most will admit that there would be nothing wrong with such a meeting. It seems like the idea here is to catch Obama in a lie. I'm a little surprised by this, considering the broad support Obama has enjoyed from both parties since his electoral victory.

Anyway, here's their evidence, a screenshot of a KHQA report from November 5 that said Obama would be meeting with Blago later that day. The report is unsourced. Here's the problem. KHQA issued the following clarification earlier today:

KHQA TV wishes to offer clarification regarding a story that appeared last month on our website ConnectTristates.com. The story, which discussed the appointment of a replacement for President Elect Obama'in the U.S. Senate, became the subject of much discussion on talk radio and on blog sites Wednesday.

The story housed in our website archive was on the morning of November 5, 2008. It suggested that a meeting was scheduled later that day between President Elect Obama and Illinois Governor Blagojevich. KHQA has no knowledge that any meeting ever took place. Governor Blagojevich did appear at a news conference in Chicago on that date.

Additionally, the story appears to have been scrubbed from the site, which would indicate its accuracy was in question. A reference in another scrubbed story, from several days later, likely relied on the same erroneous report.

Of course, the right would rather believe an unsourced, unduplicated, and effectively retracted report about something for which there is no reason to lie, than the word of our new President Elect. So much for post-partisanship.