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After I blogged yesterday that the Associated Press subjectively promoted the credentials of those accusing Virginia Sen. George Allen of racism, I found a new version of the report, linked from the Drudge Report. The story moves the allegations of Larry J. Sabato, a ("noted," "most-quoted"!) political scientist who won't even tell the AP how he knows Allen said the "N"-word, to the forefront.

Did Sabato hear Allen say "n-----"? Is he relying on hearsay? He won't tell -- he won't even take a stab at how frequent the epithet usage was, and Allen claims to never have associated with Sabato in college -- yet the industry standard wire service keeps running with the story. It doesn't even fully explain the lack of details until paragraph seven, though the accusation itself starts in the lede.

I've been criticized for admitting that until this I'd never heard of Larry Sabato, and apparently he is a frequent commentator on news shows I don't watch (like 30 percent of America, I didn't have cable until moving to the DC area a month ago, and I still prefer to get my news online so I can blog and link to it). Still, Sabato has a whopping eight-sentence Wikipedia entry, and his latest two paperbacks have one editorial and zero customer reviews between them on Amazon.com. He is successful, but he is not a household name, and the AP shouldn't play his credentials up -- or take him at his unsubstantiated word -- like this.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.

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