yeah, the media's ignorance of military affairs is something that's worn down my teeth for 20 years. it's almost treated like forbidden knowledge: if you do know something about it, they look at you funny. so you're treated to things like a front page picture in the dallas morning news of a humvee with a machinegun on top, captioned as a `tank.'
what sometimes happens is that editors wring their hands over whether `the reader' will know what a military term means, never stopping to realize that about one in seven adults is a veteran). my guess is that in this case, someone decided that no one would know what an `attack plane' is, and given the more common choices of fighter and bomber, picked fighter because an a-10 only has one seat. or (more likely) they just don't know spit from shinola (j-school students are constantly grumbling about having to take knowledge-broadening electives. i remember the editor of the college paper doing a 450-word rant on why he has to take spanish. this is in texas, mind).
as our prez sez: i feel your pain.
warmest
jlewis