Why Was The NY Post Alone in Reporting ‘White Coat-gate? Because It’s Not True

The NY Post alleged yesterday that the Health Care event held on the White House lawn Monday was fraudulent and staged, specifically claiming that white lab coats were passed to attending doctors by WH staffers.

Yesterday we tried to answer Ed Morrissey’s question “Why Was NY Post the Only Outlet to Report ‘White Coat-gate?” Initially, we thought the answer was that the story simply wasn’t newsworthy. It turns out it wasn’t even true.

According to the Post, the White House wanted all of the doctors attending Monday’s Rose Garden speech to wear white lab coats, and when some of the doctors forgot to bring theirs, “the White House rustled up white coats for them and handed them to the suited physicians who had taken seats in the sun-splashed lawn area.”

They also ran this photograph, with the caption, “OOPS! A crowd of 150 doctors gathers in the Rose Garden to support the health-care overhaul — as White House staffers scramble to hand out camera-ready white coats to those who forgot their own.”

The picture bothered me, because I didn’t recognize the staffer who was handing out the white coats.

I checked on it, and a White House source told me that the White house did not provide the extra lab coats.  Doctors for America paid for and brought the extras.  OOPS!

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