His arrest for carrying a handgun to the airport in Louisville, Ky., was under a headline "pistol-packing passenger" for months, until it was changed to a more neutral "concealed weapon arrest."
Sometimes writers had him signing the Contract with America. Sometimes they said he didn't.
Until Wednesday afternoon, Hostettler's biography page said he had said during his first campaign that he would work for term limits. That was one of the 10 points in the Contract with America.
That wasn't true. While he did support most of the Contract with America, and signed it, he told an Evansville Courier & Press reporter the day he signed it he didn't support a balanced budget amendment or term limits.
Stan Barranger, research director for Hostettler's campaign, fixed the article to say he signed eight of the 10 points.
The Wikipedia page spends nine paragraphs under the "Controversy" header - touching on Hostettler's vote against the Iraq war, the breast cancer/abortion constituent dispute, the Louisville arrest, last year's comments that Democrats support a "war on Christianity," and comments he made this year about Canadians and terrorism threats.
The controversial topics led to the most edit wars. The breast cancer/abortion link paragraph was removed as "an unsubstantiated rumor" by one editor, who also said too much weight was being given to the "War on Christianity" floor speech.
Another editor said the Courier & Press reporter who wrote about the breast cancer controversy was wrong, and that she was forced to retire "after numerous confrontations with Hostettler."
The next editor took out those points, and added a citation from the National Cancer Institute, which said having an abortion is not associated with increased breast cancer risk. That is the version that survives today.
Even though Saewyc said the volunteer editors try to catch bias as soon as it is inserted, there was rank editorializing up for several days after Hostettler's Canadian comments.
His comments on Canada and terrorism triggered denunciations in the Canadian parliament and a visit to his office from the Canadian ambassador.
