Today in distractions

Never let it be said that nobody at Fox ever (ahem) reads the comments. Here's the original lede:

A team spearheaded by the deep-sea explorer who found the Titanic has been searching a little-known ship graveyard located in the Gulf of Mexico that includes the only known Nazi U-boat to have sunk during WWII and a few of its targets, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported.

And the one available now (which seems to have disappeared from the front page):

A team spearheaded by the deep-sea explorer who found the Titanic has been searching a little-known ship graveyard located in the Gulf of Mexico that includes the only known Nazi U-boat to have sunk in the Gulf of Mexico during WWII and a few of its targets, MyFoxTampaBay.com reported.

Which isn't entirely true. What the local Fox affiliate reported was:

 But between 1942 and 1943, over 20 U-boats operated in the Gulf of Mexico, sinking dozens of ships.

U-166 is the only known U-boat to have sunk.

For which, I think, there's a marginally plausible case for reading "the only known U-boat (among those U-boats) to have sunk" that wasn't there in the Fox revision. Especially since  Fox ran a story Wednesday -- quoting a Texas TV station's Monday story -- that managed to get that (ahem) minor clarification right, we do seem to have a case of gee-whiz editorial cluelessness on hand. (Fox manages to correctly quote the original story's indication that the wrecks were found in 2001, which takes a lot of the fun out of "discovery shows WWII played out close to home.")

Given how quick the Fair 'n' Balanced comments section usually is to jump on alleged librul ignorance of things that go bang, it's not unusual to see a few attacks on journalistic ignorance:

Anyone with an understanding of History already knew about German Uboats skimming the east coast and the Gulf. the First Uboat sunk by an american force was discovered by the new Formed Civil Air patrol in the 1940s...Japan also operated Subs along the west coast and attacked a fort along the Washington coast line.

uboatDOTnet/fates/sub-sunkDOThtm list 22 U-boats by name sunk by allied submarines. Where does Fox hire their reporters? What other stories do they misreport?

The retorts, though, get into unusual territory:

Maybe you want to contact  the people in the article or do your own research for once. Go to Huffo dearie. They provide all the lies they can

This would be front page news on MSNBC

The only known u boat to have sunk during WWII? Was the person who copy / pasted this story at all familiar with the subject? Useless article.

Obvious mis-type meaning only known in Gulf of mexico

Most probably an editing blunder, but makes one wonder how careful they are with other things.  Is proofreading dead, completely replaced by spell-check?

Probably a typo......actual totals were close to 800 I believe.

I think they meant the only one sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.

Whatever it is, one thing it's safe to say that it isn't is a typo. But there's a larger target in sight:

Guess they don't teach History anymore in school. Anyone hear of Operation Drumbeat? Look it up. US ships were being torpedoed almost every other day off our coasts. Right off the eastern shore and the Delaware bay were prime hunting grounds around here. Ever see those old towers on the shore? They were gunnery sighting posts for batteries on the coast. NAS Lakehurst where the Hindenburg blew up ran US Navy blimps up and down the coast on sub patrols. What an Educational system we have! What ARE they teaching kids if they don't teach History?

They teach kids that to be gay is good and to be heterosexual is bad.

Let just say thank God Obama was no where near power back then or we would all be speaking German.

Now. Aside from that unusual tolerance for journalistic bumbling -- is Fox playing right into the Kenyan usurper's hands by making this the morning's No. 4 story?

It did not take long for Rush Limbaugh to connect the Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that was shot down over Eastern Ukraine to President Barack Obama. Shortly after relaying the news to his radio audience Thursday, the host said, “talk about an opportunity to abandon the bad Obama news at the border.”

It's a TRAP, you guys! Don't take your eyes off BENGHAZI!!!!!!!!