Chalk another one up for the blogosphere

A TPM reader catches Ron Fournier, the new AP bureau chief with his pants down. (Not literally, but close enough: Fournier told Karl Rove to "keep up the fight" in response to Pat Tillman's death -- right in the middle of the 2004 campaign.)

This of course is the same Ron Fournier who has written about Barack Obama's supposed "arrogance" problem and said that Hillary Clinton had won South Carolina because Barack Obama had become the "black candidate" (a phrase he claimed to have taken from a Clinton aide).

And this is the same AP on whose board of directors Rupert Murdoch sits, and whose star political reporter is Liz Sidoti, who loves to attack Barack and give McCain donuts.

Update: Fournier says he regrets "the breezy nature of the correspondence." Also, from the same (AP) article, here's more background on the incident about which Fournier and Rove corresponded:

In the case of Tillman's April 22, 2004, death, White House officials generated nearly 200 e-mails on the matter the day after, the committee found. Politics seemed to fuel the administration's interest: Several of the e-mails came from the staff of President Bush's re-election campaign, urging Bush to respond publicly.

The White House "rushed" to release a public statement of condolence at about noon on April 23.

But in doing so, the White House violated a military policy enacted into law by Bush himself in 2003, the committee found. The Military Family Peace of Mind Act bars the announcement of a casualty until 24 hours after a family is notified.

The Defense Department, adhering to the policy, had not yet publicly confirmed Tillman's death when the White House released Bush's statement of condolence.

Realizing this belatedly, White House spokewoman Claire Buchan warned her colleagues in an e-mail: "alert _ do not use Tillman statement." But news services were already running the White House statement.

The White House also failed to determine whether information about Tillman's death was classified, the committee found. Tillman's Ranger unit was routinely involved in sensitive operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.