With the demise of the PI, we might have expected some soul-searching at the Times about slanted and error-ridden reporting. Judging by the front page story in the April 17 edition--no such luck. The story by Steve Miletich is about the surge in gun sales since Obama.

The misstatements in the story are way too numerous to list, so I will just focus on one. Miletich writes:

"The mistrust stems, in part, from Obama's pledge to reinstate the ban on assault-style [sic] weapons...But the Obama administration has not pushed any major gun-control initiatives...He also made it clear during the campaign that he supports individual gun ownership."

Clear to whom??? Not this gun owner. When the Heller decision came down, Obama claimed to agree. But previously he had supported a gun ban in Chicago similar to the DC ban that 'Heller' overturned. Perfectly clear...as mud.

Obama has stocked his admin with a veritable "who's-who" of gun control advocates. VP-choice Biden claimed to have originated Dianne Feinstein's 'assault weapon' ban idea. Rahm Emanuel, when in the Clinton administration, bragged that "We're bending the law as far as we can to ban an entirely new class of guns" The list goes on. Atty Gen. Holder is a strong advocate of gun-control. So is Drug Czar Kerlikowske, who felt so strongly that he repeatedly fought for gun-control as SPD chief. He did this even though he must have known it was a lost cause here. According to the NRA, Education Sec'y Duncan is even more extreme on gun-control than all of the above.

Has Obama ever 'made it clear?' No, and to say so is the kind of thing you might expect in a spam from David Plouffe, but not in a news article. One thing that is clear is that the lessons of the PI were lost on the TImes.

It will not surprise me one bit, if Seattle one day becomes a zero-newspaper town.