hat tip: Michelle Malkin, who hat tips Little Green Footballs for this find... (read the caption)

Yup, you read it right. The AP is calling the world's most notorious terrorist an "exiled Saudi dissident". A couple quick Google and Yahoo! searches revealed that the "exiled Saudi dissident" caption has been a staple in many AP articles for a number of years. Of course when it was used in the late 90s, the AP and other media using the term might be able to play the ignorance card. Heck, they were lucky to have heard of Bin Laden at all, considering Clinton was doing everything in his power to turn down offers to take Bin Laden in to custody.

Anyway, a lot of bloggers are talking about the new video, and many even about this "dissident" thing, but are unaware that this isn't just a one time thing. As I said, I did just a little Googling and Yahooing and found a number of examples bost pre and post 9/11. We shouldn't really cut them that much slack for doing it in the late 90s because they knew (or should have) who this guy was... but it's the more recent examples that are the annoying ones. I'll give you handful of both though.

For the record, Dictionary.com defines "dissident" as:

Disagreeing, as in opinion or belief.

Pre-9/11
MSNBC - August 24, 1998
CBS News - June 25, 2001

Post-9/11
CNN - September 19, 2001
WorldNetDaily.com - September 19, 2001
AP via The Sierra Times - September 24, 2001
CBS News - September 30, 2001
USA Today - September 30, 2001
Chicago Tribune - October 1, 2001
AP via Fox News - October 5, 2001
AP via CBS News - October 11, 2001

AP via CBS News - June 19, 2002
AP via SFGate.com - June 19, 2002

It was weird searching for these. Pre-9/11 there were a lot from 1998 and 1999, but as I said, those aren't quite as annoying as the post 9/11 examples. The abundance of what I was finding was from September and October of 2001, and as you see a couple from 2002. This was just basic Yahoo! and Google searching, so I'm sure I missed dozens (if not hundreds) of other examples out there.

If anyone else out there found other examples I didn't include, email me at randy at rightwinged dot com. I know they're out there, but don't have the time to look for them at the moment, so please send 'em over if you found any.

Blog roundup:
Michelle Malkin, Michelle Malkin again, The Political Teen, Little Green Footballs, Junkyard Blog, The Jawa Report, Captain's Quarters, MacsMind, Iowa Voice, Public Figures.... Beware, Flap's Blog, Texas Fred, Rightwing Nuthouse, The New Editor, Murdoc Online, American Pie Revisted, The Strata-Sphere, The Political Pitbull, Sensible Mom, Stop the ACLU, The Pink Flamingo Bar & Grill, Rovian Conspiracy, Suitably Flip, Conservative Outpost, Law Hawk, Politechnical, Super Fun Power Hour, Publius Rendezvous, Conservative Revolution, Protein Wisdom, Low Earth Orbit, Uncooperative Blogger, Martin's Musings, Reverse Vampyr, Busblog, Rant Fever, Decision '08, In The Bullpen, Outside the Beltway, The Counterterrorism Blog 1, The Counterterrorism Blog 2, The Counterterrorism Blog 3, The Counterterrorism Blog 4, Wizbang