On Friday, POLITICO and its zitty hipster reporter, a guy named Kyle D. Cheney, published a totally false and scurrilous attack on Ben Carson. Late Friday, they doubled down with another equally false story. Having been beaten down by even their media colleagues, POLITICO is now trying so save the tattered remains of the feeble resemblance of reputation that it had before this fiasco by publishing a rather half-assed retraction.

POLITICO’s reporting established that Carson said he received a “full scholarship” from West Point, in writing and in public appearances over the years — but in fact he did not and there is actually no such thing as a “full scholarship” to the taxpayer-funded academy. And today in response to POLITICO he acknowledged for the first time that was not the case. Carson never explicitly wrote that he had applied for admission to West Point, although that was the clear implication of his claim to have received an offer of a “full scholarship,” a point that POLITICO’s initial report should have made clear.

I’m not even sure what this says in way of apology for a calculated lie. In fact, they try to add another charge about the “scholarship.” Technically, of course, they are right, A military academy appointment is not actually a scholarship. But how would it have appeared to a Detroit high school student? Especially since as late as 1992 the Army was calling an appointment a “scholarship.”

(h/t to @morgenr)

So, POLITICO keeps the lies coming. Having failed in their basic duty to report truthfully rather than engage in a rather nasty political dirty trick, they can’t bring themselves to man-up and print an honest retraction.