NYT repeats phony Obama quote

The New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller repeats the myth that Barack Obama said Hillary Clinton was pretending to hunt ducks with a revolver in a Week in Review article today:

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain have both derided Mr. Obama as “elitist” for his remarks about bitter rural voters who “cling” to guns and religion, even as Mr. Obama, in a counterpunch, mocked her courtship of gun owners, depicting her as a kind of ersatz Annie Oakley “packing a six-shooter” in a duck blind. And Mr. McCain, throwing a haymaker of his own, pointed out in a recent speech to members of the National Rifle Association that “someone should tell Senator Obama that ducks are usually hunted with shotguns.”

But Obama never said Hillary was "'packing a six-shooter' in a duck blind." His actual quote was the following:

She's talking like she's Annie Oakley. Hillary Clinton's out there like she's on the duck blind every Sunday. She's packing a six-shooter. C'mon, she knows better.

As TNR's Jonathan Chait pointed out, "Obama was joking that Clinton was putting herself forward as someone who hunts ducks every Sunday and carries a six-shooter, not that Clinton hunts with a six-shooter."

Chait has documented how this myth has been promoted by John McCain, who misquotes Obama as saying "like she's on the duck blind every Sunday, packin' a six-shooter!" His misquotation already been repeated by the Washington Post and the Associated Press as well as a previous Bumiller article. Will the Times correct the record before this myth becomes conventional wisdom?

Comments

[David]

Obama said it was ridiculous for Hillary to claim that she hunted ducks and used a six-shooter. Obama wasn't talking about what Hillary did. He was disparaging what she said.

The misquote makes Hillary's claim even more ridiculous, thus making Obama's contradiction of her comment even more cogent. The misquote may be unfair to Hillary (depending on what she actually said), but logically it shouldn't harm Obama

However, logic doesn't seem to play a major role in campaigns.