For the past 18 years, I’ve kept a personal journal. I have 14 black and white composition notebooks stacked in a drawer. Every now and then, I’ll open one and flipped through pages filled with memories of adolescent angst, joy, sadness, regrets, etc.
While some weblogs are strictly logs of the web, opinion sites or personal journals, many are a combination of all three. I intend for this blog to be such a combination. In fact, this entry is the sort of thing I’d record in my personal journal, but I decided to record it here.
I dropped the ball on my last column, “‘Christians’ Oppose Partial Birth Abortion Ban.” I wrote that Tom Daschle, Mary Landrieu and Robert Byrd voted against the ban on partial birth abortion. In fact, they had not. Additionally, John Edwards, Joe Biden and Dick Gephardt didn’t even vote this time around.
I discovered that, in addition to making assumptions, I was looking at an out-dated or incorrect roll call list. I’d like to apologize to readers for the sloppy research. My column on the partial birth abortion ban appears in edited form in the post below this one.
In my over-zealousness for the issue of partial birth abortion, I let my emotions (and stereotypes of Democrats) get in the way of methodical research and responsible writing. A writer’s credibility is all he/she has, and when these kind of mistakes happen, credibility suffers. I’m not a trained journalist, but I do have the brain that God gave me. I just need to use it better.
It’s a privilege to contribute to the “marketplace of ideas.” I believe conservative principles are right for America, and it’s my hope that I can influence people to at least think critically about important issues rather than accept at face value the words of politicians, journalists, opinion-makers — even people like me — at face value.
I apologize to readers for the inaccuracies and thank you for your readership.
