HMMM ... WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS FOX PETITION-FRAUD STORY?

A Fox News story is titled "Indiana 2008 Presidential Primary Election Fraud Probe Heats Up." And, well, it does look as if something untoward took place:

Charity Rorie, a mother of four, sat in her Mishawaka, Ind., kitchen, stunned that her name appeared on a 2008 Democratic presidential primary petition for then-candidate Barack Obama.

"That's not my signature," she told Fox News, saying her signature is "absolutely" a fake. She also said she was troubled someone forged both her signature and that of her husband, Jeff, and listed personal details such as their address and birthdays....

Robert Hunter Jr. said his name was faked, too.

"I did not sign for Barack Obama," he told Fox News, adding his signature supporting the then-Illinois senator's effort to get on the primary ballot was also a forgery....

"My wife and I actually signed a petition for Hillary Clinton," he said. "I am an Obama fan, but not in the primaries I wasn't."

The prospect that theirs are two of an estimated 150 signatures that may have been forged on the petitions has raised the question of whether President Obama actually reached the legitimate number of signatures needed to be placed on the ballot in Indiana....

"This is the Chicago way and it will not be tolerated in the state of Indiana," [state Republican chairman Eric] Holcomb said....

If you read the story at Fox, you conclude one thing: cheating was involved in the gathering of signatures for Barack Obama. Obama may not have legitimately qualified to be on the primary ballot in Indiana. A video version of the story at the link says the same thing.

But as this story from the South Bend Tribune notes, there actually appear to be forged signatures on petitions for both Obama and Hillary Clinton in this Indiana county. The Fox story, however, never mentions the apparently forged Clinton signatures.

Curious, that.

In fact, the headline of the Tribune story is

Clinton, Obama Indiana Primary Petitions Tainted by Forged Signatures

The story tells us:

Several pages from petitions used to qualify Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the state's Democratic primary contain names and signatures that appear to have been copied by hand from a petition for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Schellinger....

The Tribune has talked with more than 30 people besides Dvorak whose names are on both the Clinton and Schellinger petitions. All but one of them have confirmed their purported signatures on the Clinton petition are not genuine.

Erich Speckin, a forensic document analyst, examined the petitions ...

He said there is clear evidence, based on the consistency of the handwriting, that about 10 pages in the Obama petition were filled in by the same person, and another person apparently filled in nine pages....

The situation ... calls into question whether either Clinton or Obama ... should have been on the Indiana primary ballot.

Not a word of the alleged fraud on Clinton's behalf appears in the Fox video or print stories. The Fox story mentions the county Democratic chairman who resigned, but never says he resigned because of allegations about both candidates' petitions.

Do I have to explain why? The people at Fox want to enrage not only Republicans, but Democrats who preferred Clinton in '08 and never truly warmed to Obama. Telling the whole story would spoil that narrative. Telling the whole story might fail to nudge Hillary fans toward the GOP for 2012.

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And yes, corners were cut here, but it was fraud on ballot petitions for one primary in one county of one state -- it wasn't major-league fraud.