Some folks at Reuters need to go back to school to learn what a metaphor is.

In a press conference, President Bush used a metaphor to explain why civilian leaders in the style of Nelson Mandela have not yet emerged from Iraqi society:

Part of the reason why there is not this instant democracy in Iraq is because people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule. I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.

Here’s how Reuters characterized that statement:

Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader’s death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

[...]

“I heard somebody say, Where’s Mandela?’ Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas,” Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday.

James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal website OpinionJournal.com theorizes on how such an obvious mischaracterization of President Bush’s statement could make it past the layers of editors that supposedly ensure quality control at Reuters:

Stupidity. The reporter was so bone-headedly literal-minded that he simply did not understand the rhetorical device Bush was employing.

Laziness. The reporter wasn’t actually at the press conference and didn’t bother to check the context of the quote.

Dishonesty. The reporter knew full well that Bush was speaking metaphorically and deliberately twisted his meaning in order to fit the stereotype that Bush “has a reputation for verbal faux pas.”

None of these possibilities are terribly flattering for Reuters. One might even venture to say that this piece is itself “an embarrassing gaffe”.

As a full-time employee of Reuters (I’m not on the editorial side; I write software), all I know is that this is the kind of underhanded reporting that makes me embarrassed to tell people where I work.

Update: By making the statement above, I may have violated corporate policy. And in retrospect, whatever opinion I may have of this editorial coverage, I am most decidedly not embarrassed to work at Reuters. The people with whom I work directly are top-notch, and I’m proud of the innovative work we’re doing. I just think that newsrooms can benefit from more intellectual diversity; it would help prevent errors like this from seeping into news coverage, and it would make news consumers less likely to perceive bias.

I decided to strike rather than delete the statement above because owning up to the transgression feels more honest than trying to send it down the memory hole.