Sloppy Reporting

Some ledes are beyond parody:

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush’s $2.5 trillion budget is shaping up as his most austere. . .

Cough, cough.

. . .trying to restrain spending across a wide swath of government from popular farm subsidies to poor people’s health programs.

First, Bush – the guy who has never proposed a budget close to balanced and has never once used his veto pen – has had a single “austere” budget?

Second, farm subsidies are popular with whom exactly? (Other than the people cashing the checks, and Meryl Streep circa 1989?)

Third, the cuts to “poor people’s health programs” were apparently so small, that the story couldn’t even mention them. The smallest cut mentioned was of a couple hundred million to DOE programs.