Yahoo News spins Laura Bush poisoning story as nothing more than “hype” to “sell books”

They start with a “question” and then go about trying to answer it with what their question already insinuates:

Mystery deepens around alleged Bush poisoning incident

Did former First Lady Laura Bush hype a stomach flu (or some other virus) into a mythical assassination attempt in order to sell books? When Bush’s memoir, “Spoken From the Heart,” was released last month, dozens of headlines blasted out its most tantalizing tidbit: Bush suspected that a mysterious illness that befell her, her husband and their staff during the 2007 G8 summit in Germany may have been the result of an attempt to kill or incapacitate the 43rd president.

“Exceedingly alarmed” by the illness, Bush wrote, “the Secret Service went on full alert, combing the resort for potential poisons. In the past year, there had been several high-profile poisonings, including one with suspected nuclear material, in and around Europe. The overriding fear was that terrorists had gotten control of a dangerous substance and planted it at the resort. [W]e never learned if any other delegations became ill, or if ours, mysteriously, was the only one.”

That’s the sort of shadowy intrigue that’s landed many a book on the bestseller list β€” just ask Dan Brown. However, there’s no record of the episode ever happening, at least according to the Secret Service. Yahoo! News filed a Freedom of Information Act request looking for any documents β€” e-mails, investigation reports, incident reports, etc. β€” related to the alleged incident. In reply, the Secret Service informed us Monday that its review of records “indicates that there are no records or documents pertaining to your request in [our] files.”

Er, you know it’s a slow news day when a news outlet decides to “hype” a non-story that was already “hyped” and “dissected” by “concerned” liberal bloggers/pundits/writers almost two months ago. Also, you have to love how the title of this article included the words “Mystery deepens …” – what about this two month old story has “deepened” since it was last reported and researched? Absolutely nothing.

But thanks for the “reminder,” Yahoo News, that this story is “unverifiable” two months after other “investigative reporters” figured that out. 8-|

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