“No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for,” said Obama in the Rose Garden on September 12, after two paragraphs of recounting how Americans responded to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Obama campaign, knowing that they had advanced a false narrative for weeks and were being called on it, found the word “terror” in his initial response and relied on that speech to show that the president had known the Libya attack was terror all along.

This is wildly offensive to everyone who followed the story closely, but the president seemed to think that he could perhaps get away with it if he had the assistance of complicit journalists who would not fact check that hard. He could not have known the kind of gift he would receive from Candy Crowley — amid a presidential debate, no less…

It was a shameful display and an indictment of so much of what is wrong with the media today where the default position is the Democratic party’s talking point. It is the singular reason why so few Americans trust the fourth estate. Reporting means never having to say you’re sorry, but sometimes engaging in inaccurate opinion journalism does require a correction. Crowley was wrong and she should make it far clearer than her equivocating mea culpa last night.