“Stunt” Stunt at the Washington Times

Our favorite deranged-megalomaniac-owned newspaper provided a gift for wingnuts everywhere with this story by Amy Fagan yesterday:

Democrats call Zarqawi killing a stunt

Some Democrats, breaking ranks from their leadership, today said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq was a stunt to divert attention from an unpopular and hopeless war.

Predictably, right-wing bloggers seized on the inflammatory language as yet another example of supposedly angry, supposedly unhinged Democrats. The problem is that the Times provides no examples of Democrats actually using the word “stunt”.

Someone must have called them on it, because there’s now a toned-down version of the article online, with the “stunt” references removed (though the original remains online as well):

Some Democrats dismiss air strike

Some Democrats, breaking ranks with their leadership yesterday, said the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab Zarqawi in Iraq wasn’t significant and is being used to divert attention from an unpopular, unsuccessful war that should be ended.

Producing a corrected version allows the Times to pretend to adhere to professional journalistic standards, but at this point the damage has been done, and a new fake story for bashing Democrats has been established.