Byrd gets Gored

This from Spinsanity:

In what can only be described as a collective hallucination, Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) has been described by a wide range of journalists and commentators as having criticized the cost of President Bush's speech on the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier returning from the Middle East. The reality is that Byrd never mentioned the cost of the carrier event, at which Bush dramatically arrived on a Navy jet; the Democrats who most prominently raised those questions were Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and John Conyers (D-MI). But because of Byrd's well-known success at directing federal funds to his state, commentators simply attributed the statements of Waxman and Conyers to Byrd and then called Byrd a hypocrite. This absurd political myth is now being widely repeated as fact.

On May 7, Byrd denounced Bush's landing and speech on the Lincoln from the Senate floor, saying that Bush "exploit[ed] the trappings of war" and used the military "as stage props to embellish a presidential speech." Waxman requested that the General Accounting Office investigate the cost of the event, while Conyers issued a similar request to the Defense Department.

Amazingly, the media couldn't even manage to get the facts right that day. On MSNBC's "Buchanan & Press," co-host Pat Buchanan said, "Senator Robert Byrd is saying bah humbug to the president landing on that carrier. He wants to know how much it cost and he thinks it was just a stage and a prop for the president's speech."

There's more. Oh there's so much more.