In coverage of McCain's Denver visit, News and Post omitted remarks about oil, war

Summary: The Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post reported on Sen. John McCain's May 2 town-hall meeting in Denver without mentioning his reported statement that his energy policy "will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East." As of May 5, neither newspaper had reported on McCain's remark or his later clarification that he had been referring to the first Gulf War.

Reporting on Sen. John McCain's May 2 appearance in Denver, the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post omitted reference to McCain's reported suggestion that, as the Associated Press wrote on May 2, "the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil." According to the AP article, during comments he made at the "town hall-style meeting," McCain said that his energy policy "will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East." The article further reported that McCain was later "forced to clarify his comments" by saying that "he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict."

As of May 5, the News and the Post had yet to independently report on the initial statement McCain made in Denver or his clarification. Although the Post on May 2 posted the AP article on its website, an article about the meeting published in the newspaper's May 4 local edition did not mention the remark that McCain later clarified. Colorado Media Matters has previously noted that reporting in the News and the Post about a McCain fundraising visit omitted significant background context regarding two issues mentioned in the articles.

According to the AP article:

Republican John McCain was forced to clarify his comments Friday suggesting the Iraq war involved U.S. reliance on foreign oil. He said he was talking about the first Gulf War and not the current conflict.

At issue was a comment he made at a town hall-style meeting Friday morning in Denver.

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East," McCain said.

The expected GOP nominee sought to clarify his comments later, after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn't mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.

"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.

One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said. "But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.

"If the word 'again' was misconstrued, I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.

"The Congressional Record is very clear: I said we went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction," he said.

It was the second time in as many days that McCain had to clarify his comments. On Thursday, he backed off his assertion that pork-barrel spending led to last year's deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

McCain's remarks also were noted on the May 2 broadcast of CNN's The Situation Room by anchor Wolf Blitzer and reporter Dana Bash, who covered the Denver event:

BLITZER: And right at the end of that event earlier, Dana, he said something about war and oil. It's raising eyebrows. I'm going to play the clip. And then we will discuss.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to set a date for withdrawal. That's what they want to do, is get everybody out.

I believe that that would lead to catastrophe and chaos and that we would have the whole region, including the country, in such turmoil, that we would be required to come back to the region. And I just want to promise you this.

My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East, that will that will then ...

(APPLAUSE)

MCCAIN: ... prevent us -- that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right. You can interpret that as the U.S. went to war in Iraq, perhaps, for oil, which is not exactly what the administration and John McCain had said originally. What are they saying?

BASH: Absolutely.

And as soon as I heard this, I thought, because it was so much in the context of the discussion of the current war in Iraq, because you heard him talking about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, as soon as I heard that, I e-mailed one of his top advisers and said, does that -- did he just say we want to war because of oil?

They got on the plane from Denver and immediately they started realizing that what Senator McCain said was -- left a lot of question marks. So, Senator McCain himself came back to talk to reporters on his plane, Wolf. And what he said is, first of all, he said that he was talking about the first Gulf War, the war, as you remember, to liberate Kuwait.

And the other thing he said is that he said 1,000 times we went to war because of weapons of mass destruction. McCain said it's clear in the congressional record. And he said, for me to change that would be -- would not make a lot of sense right now. So, that's the way he's explaining it.

BLITZER: So, he's suggesting the first Gulf War in 1991 was done for oil; is that what he's now saying?

BASH: Apparently, apparently, but, to be honest with you, it's still a little bit unclear what he was saying, because it was so much there, as we just heard it, in the context of the current war.

But he has said, as you just pointed out, many times that he believed at the time and he believes now that the United States went to war for weapons of mass destruction. But that was quite a confusing comment that he made there, to say the least.

The News' May 3 article about McCain's appearance reported his remarks about the economy, health care, and Iran, but did not include his reported comments about oil and war in the Middle East. In a May 3 article posted on its website, the Post noted that during the meeting McCain "fielded questions from the audience" regarding "health care ... election politics, oil independence, the war in Iraq and how best to deal with Iran's growing influence." But the article similarly failed to report McCain's comments about "our dependence on oil from the Middle East" and its relationship to "send[ing] our young men and women into conflict again." The May 4 Post article reported that McCain's campaign "faces big obstacles" in the Western region, but also failed to mention his original May 2 remarks regarding war in the Middle East and oil dependence or his subsequent clarification.

A tip from reader C.M. contributed to this item. Thanks, and keep them coming.

— C.K.

Posted to the web on Monday May 5, 2008 at 8:05 PM EST