WaPo Blows A1 McCain Story

Amanda Carpenter | August 06, 2008 3:33 PM

Hours after blogging about the problems in Washington Post reporter Matthew Mosk's A1 story, this correction was posted online:

Correction to This ArticleThe first name of McCain donor Faisal Abdullah was misspelled in some versions of this story, including in the print edition of The Washington Post. Also, the article incorrectly identified a Rite Aide manager and two Twilight Hookah Lounge owners as being among the donors Sargeant solicited on behalf of McCain. Those donors - Rite Aid manager Ibrahim Marabeh, and the lounge owners, Nadia and Shawn Abdalla - wrote checks to Giuliani and Clinton, not McCain.

That means these people Mosk alleged had been somehow forced to make campaign contributions to McCain through a third-party bundler NEVER DONATED MONEY TO MCCAIN.

The very lede of Mosk's front-page story, included in my previous post linked above, was wrong. What's going on with the Washington Post? How could they have blown this one so badly? And where did the March 12 contribution date come from?

Update: I just remembered Mosk was the same reporter who tried to rustle up a McCain land-swap scandal on shaky facts earlier this year. I wrote about it HERE.