They used to fire reporters for making such wild, unsubstantiated charges on the air. Or send the offender to the overnight desk in Anchorage.

But Brian Ross, the ABC reporter who suggested that the name "Jim Holmes" he found on a tea party website was the same man who allegedly murdered 12 people at a Colorado theater today -- and turned out to be laughably wrong -- will probably get promoted to the White House beat if Romney is elected president. After all, he showed a lot of initiative in trying to smear the right which is exactly what ABC will be looking for if Mitt wins in November.

Now that the report has turned out to be a figament of Ross' imagination, ABC is apologizing.

Politico:

ABC News and Brian Ross are apologizing for an "incorrect" report that James Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado theater shooting, may have had connections to the Tea Party.

"An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect," ABC News said in a statement. "ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted."

In a similar statement released minutes earlier, ABC News said the report was "incorrect" but did not include the apology. "Several other local residents with similar names were also contacted via social media by members of the public who mistook them for the suspect," the initial statement read.

ABC's apology comes after Ross reported this morning that there is "a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado, page on the Colorado Tea party site... talking about him joining the Tea Party last year."

"Now, we don't know if this is the same Jim Holmes," Ross cautioned "but it's Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado."

What made Ross go to the Tea Party page in the first place? Was he looking for an excuse to blame the Tea Party for the massacre?

Well, yeah. And the question someone should be asking him -- and his bosses at ABC -- is why should someone so obviously politically motivated in their reporting continue to be employed by a news organization?

Watch related American Thinker Video selection.