Martha J. Raddatz is ABC News' Chief White House Correspondent and I owe her and ABC News an apology.

Wikipedia: "Raddatz was promoted to her current role in November 2005, after six years with ABC News. Raddatz began her tenure at ABC News in 1999 as the network's State Department correspondent and became ABC's senior national security correspondent in May 2003, reporting extensively from Iraq. From 1993 to 1998, Raddatz covered the Pentagon for National Public Radio. Prior to joining NPR in 1993, Raddatz was the chief correspondent at the ABC News Boston affiliate WCVB-TV. She is also the author of the New York Times bestseller The Long Road Home, a book about the war in Sadr City, Iraq."

In "Thoughts on the Presidential Race," I stated that "the media has been so Obama-friendly and caught up in the fairy tale of America electing someone who is known to be part black as President that the whole truth is not reported or generally known."

I stand by that statement and add to the evidence list on media bias (1) the anchors of ABC, NBC and CBS all joining Obama on his overseas trip when none of them accompanied McCain on his many trips to Iraq or his trip to Europe since he became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and (2) the New York Times refusing to publish an oped by McCain responding to an Obama oped that The Times had published.

That pro-Obama bias is blatant and continuing, but not every claim of bias is valid and I was misled by a bogus email into believing that Ms. Raddatz had distorted the political views of American soldiers in Iraq that she had interviewed.

I wrote:

"Here's the rest of the story, according to Major General (ret) Buckman:

'My niece, Katelyn, stationed at Baluud, Iraq was assigned, with others of her detachment, to be escort/guard/watcher for Martha Raddatz of ABC News as she covered John McCain's recent trip to Iraq . Katelyn and her Captain stood directly behind Raddatz as she queried GIs walking past. They kept count of the GIs and you should remember these numbers. She asked 60 GIs who they planned to vote for in November. 54 said John McCain, 4 for Obama and 2 for Hillary. Katelyn called home and told her Mom and Dad to watch ABC news the next night because she was standing directly behind Raddatz and maybe they'd see her on TV. Mom and Dad of course, called and emailed all the kinfolk to watch the newscast and maybe see Katelyn. Well, of course, we all watched and what we saw wasn't a glimpse of Katelyn, but got a heck'uva view of skewed news. After a dissertation on McCain's trip and speech, ABC showed 5 GIs being asked by Raddatz how they were going to vote in November; 3 for Obama and 2 for Clinton. No mention of the 54 for McCain.'"

To repeat: the alleged email was bogus.

Ms. Raddatz graciously called my attention to an article by a Hero of the Duke Case Hoax, "John in North Carolina," acknowledging that he too had been misled (http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/search?q=john+in+north+carolina).

"John" wrote:

"This past Friday I posted a bogus claim that ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Martha Raddatz and the network suppressed almost all the information Raddatz gathered in April in Iraq from 60 U. S. soldiers concerning their presidential candidate preferences. (Raddatz was there covering a trip by Vice President Dick Cheney)

"In an April 7 ABC News story Raddatz reported on interviews by my count with 4 soldiers who favored Sen. Obama, 1 'leaning' toward Sen. Clinton, a number who favored no candidate, but talked about their concerns including multiple deployments, the economy,etc., and a few who said they weren't following the campaign closely. The story’s here.

"Subsequently a bogus claim began circulating on the Net. The claim is Raddatz and ABC suppressed the news that 54 soldiers she interviewed all expressed a preference for Sen. McCain. There's zero evidence to support the claim, and a great deal of evidence that leaves no doubt the McCain-54 claim is bogus.

"I’d like to tell you how I came to post the bogus claim and how – with help first from commenter Tarheel Hawkeye, then from others of you commenting on- and offline, another blogger and Martha Raddatz herself – I learned the claim is bogus."

I join "John" in apologizing to Ms. Raddatz and ABC News.

To critics of pro-Obama media bias, I say: there's more than enough evidence of real bias without making up stuff.

To doubters: tune in to MSNBC's "Hardball" with Chris Matthews.