Danesqueapades Award Goes to: ABC!

I wish to announce the Second Danesquepades Award.  Don't bother looking for the first award, for I am also announcing it now retroactively.  The award is in honor, so to speak, of Dan Rather, and in memory of the false Sixty Minutes II story that brought his career to an ignominious close.  To qualify, some media source has to 1) publish a story of some political scandal, which story 2) turns out to be without foundation. 

The First Award goes to USAToday, for its story about telecom giants turning their records over to the NSA.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but all the telecom businesses mentioned have now categorically denied that any such exchange took place.  The award is shared with TIME magazine, which celebrated the story on a recent cover without bothering to confirm it.  I have posted on this, and if our permalinks ever start working, you can find it here. 

The Second Danesquepade Award goes to ABC, for its claim that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was a target of the FBI's Congressional bribery investigation.  Michelle Malkin has the original language of the ABC story, which has apparently been modified. 

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI, which is seeking to determine his role in an ongoing public corruption probe into members of Congress, ABC News has learned from senior U.S. law enforcement officials.

Federal officials say the information implicating Hastert was developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

But it turns out that Hastert isn't a target.  Here is the Reuters report:

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday denied a report that the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, is under investigation by the FBI in connection with a corruption probe.

ABC News, citing high level Justice Department sources, said information implicating Hastert had been developed from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

But department officials, who asked to not be identified, said the story was not accurate and that Hastert was not under investigation. "The story is wrong. Hastert is not under investigation," one official said.

ABC turned out its pockets, with nothing to show for it.  The Second Danesquepade is theirs.