OK, Just One More Hint: His Name Rhymes with “Beanwald”
A very “civil” blogger who always hews to “substance” rather than invective has written a very dishonest little squib on Salon about the Reuters scandal. (h/t Allah.) (You can access it here; just click on the silly commercial and surf the net on a different browser window until it’s done.)
I won’t name the blogger, but he once linked a post (the very first link in this post) that called one of his opponents a “suburban douchebag” — among many, many other things. His writings are famously misleading. And he has some fierce defenders at his IP address.
And he has such great substance!
Anyway, his latest disingenuous bilge pretends that the Reuters photo scandal is all about two altered photographs:
It is indisputably wrong for a media outlet to alter photographs or other information so as to falsely represent what is being reported. That is beyond dispute. Yet for three straight days now (and still going strong), the right-wing blogosphere has been wallowing in a self-celebratory swarm because two photographs taken in Lebanon and published by Reuters were found to have been altered using Photoshop by the freelance photographer who submitted them.
Oh . . . is that what this is all about?? Because somehow I thought there was more to it than that.
Even Tim Rutten is honest enough to admit there’s more to it than that. A lot more. As Rutten recently noted:
There is an entire series of photos of children’s stuffed toys poised atop mounds of rubble. All are miraculously pristinely clean and apparently untouched by the devastation they purportedly survived. . . . . There’s an improbable photo by Hajj of a Koran burning atop the rubble of a building supposedly destroyed by an Israeli aircraft hours before. Nothing else in sight is alight. (With photos, as in life, when something seems too perfect to be true, it’s almost always because it is.) In other photos, the same wrecked building is portrayed multiple times with the same older woman — one supposes she ought to be called a model — either lamenting its destruction or passing by in different costumes.
As I noted in this post:
Rutten missed the Green Helmet guy who choreographed the photography of dead children, so that they would be removed from ambulances for a better and more effective shot. (More on him here and here.) He missed the photographer who admits that bodies have been dug up to make pictures more effective. He missed the girl who fell off the swing being portrayed as a bombing victim.
As I said in that post, I’m sure there’s even more than I have managed to keep track of. Zombie had a fairly comprehensive roundup of some of the major issues.
There is so much more to this scandal than two pictures that were photoshopped in minor ways.
And for our good Man of Substance to claim otherwise shows him to be either utterly ignorant of the extent of the scandal, or flat-out dishonest.
I know what my vote is.
UPDATE: I love how Ace puts it.
UPDATE x2: OK, I just noticed that the piece was dated August 7. Some of this stuff developed after that date. So I’m sure he’s updated his blog to reflect the new developments, and written Salon to have them correct the misleading impression created by his piece.
Right?
UPDATE x3: Wrong. Upon further investigation, he has, shockingly, done no such thing.
Here’s a quick timeline:
On August 6, Power Line and others had noted that the same building had been depicted as being destroyed on July 24 and August 5, and that the same woman had been depicted as lamenting the destruction of buildings on different dates. A blog published numerous photos of people in the identical hands-upraised pose in front of destroyed buildings. John Hinderaker said:
It is now obvious that this is a major scandal, and that Reuters has allowed itself to be used as a vehicle for publishing the crudest forms of Hezbollah propaganda.
The next day, our Man of Substance published his Salon piece describing the scandal as involving two minor photoshops.
On August 8, the scandal started picking up, and many of the other details discussed above were revealed.
On August 9, I published a post rounding up many of the various pieces of evidence, including Zombie’s summary and Slublog’s dust-free toys atop destroyed buildings. The same day, Mr. Substance published a post that called the Reuters scandal “hysterically overblown” — with a hyperlink to his own Salon piece.
He has no excuse.
Jealous, much?
Thomas (Rhymes with Sellers) (6fbc27) — 8/15/2006 @ 7:30 pmThomas: Jealous, much?
bains (3f9c1c) — 8/15/2006 @ 7:53 pmNot as much as Mona…
You who HAVE NO BEST SELLER ON THE NYT LIST, you who NO SENATORS QUOTE, you you you…LIAR. Every glorious word that flies up from our beloved Brazilian based overlord is like NECTAR. He is rubber, my friend, and you are glue and we know where that all goes.
the REAL Thomas Ellersbuger (aac9ba) — 8/15/2006 @ 7:53 pmDon’t forget that this right-leaning civil libertarian references Tbogg, who actually tries to compare a Carl Cameron goof (which was an actual joke, not meant for publications, and for which he immediately apologized) and a Photoshopped photo of Kerry that many on the right side of the blogosphere proclaimed to be fake (if I’m remembering correctly) to a series of war photos from a hot war in order to “even out” the biases.
Which means, of course, that Tbogg is unwittingly acknowledging that Reuters plays for the left. Otherwise, why feel the need to show that the “right” does “it” too?
Indisputable facts that emerge from this little piece of “Wilson’s / “Ellison’s” / et al’s:
1) Salon, like Time, will hire just about anyone.
2) “Beanwald” has and will lie, spin, and contort for the left, and “they” (Beanwald and his various “friends” who speak in his voice) are not above citing as “their” sources “TBogg” and “Retardo Montalban.”
And I simply cannot wait for the day Russ Feingold reads “Retardo Montalban” into the Congressional Record.
3) This is all a game to people like “Beanwald” — and it is all being played in the hopes that the anti-war left can regain power.
4) Beanwald was, and is, a cutout of the progressive / netroot left’s. Not only was on the Townhouse list, but he has been pushed as an “expert” by the progressive left under false pretenses.
5) The only people he’s fooling are the most moronic of his fellow travelers. The rest realize that he is engaging in agitprop.
Jeff G (1d814a) — 8/15/2006 @ 7:59 pmIt is indisputably wrong for a media outlet to alter photographs or other information so as to falsely represent what is being reported.
Oh thank goodness. For a moment I thought I was lost in CrazyWorld™
Like where I saw protesters in San Francisco call Jews “Nazis”.
That’s some crazy, I mean.
Dave in Texas (79dcb6) — 8/15/2006 @ 8:16 pmAs opposed to being a ‘cosmopolitan douchebag’ like himself, I presume.
ahen (b47690) — 8/15/2006 @ 8:19 pm[…] Am I a whore for trackbacking (is that a verb?) Patterico instead of ace where I first saw this and linked it, even though I just learned about trackbacks today? […]
Dave in Texas » Why, the right is only worked up over two damn photographs (ca9c00) — 8/15/2006 @ 8:26 pmDo you ever get that “not so fresh” feeling?
Sean M. (db71f3) — 8/15/2006 @ 8:35 pmGood day, sir!
John (3e13e7) — 8/15/2006 @ 9:41 pmFOX NEWS!!
RUSH LIMBAUGH!!
Dwilkers (a1687a) — 8/16/2006 @ 2:32 amAs someone who has been photoshopped, and who may indeed BE a photoshop, Gleen has an epistemological investment in this situation.
Dan Collins (208fbe) — 8/16/2006 @ 4:40 amI guess I can’t blame Patterico for this but I ended up over His Highness’ site this morning reading his latest pronouncements.
Has anyone else ever noticed that Sir Douche has his (now famous) “about me” paragraph at the top of his blog? You know, the one those other guys spent so much time running around posting about his book etc?
It is actually written out at the top – you don’t have to click into it like you do for anyone else. I can’t think of another blogger that does that.
Dwilkers (a1687a) — 8/16/2006 @ 5:12 amWhy anyone would pay a schmuck like GiGi to write for them is beyond me. There’s simply no “there” there, just woefully misplaced self-adoration piled upon a heap of facts, some of which are occasionally accurate. I mean, sure, Bush is evil and stupid, but what about GiGi?
Feh.
BTW, a new data point for the Fauxtography scandal: Green Helmet guy admits staging corpse photos, doesn’t see a problem with it.
Pablo (efa871) — 8/16/2006 @ 5:23 amThe Photoshop story, like the Mike Wallace interview with Ahmadinejad, is a test of the left wingers’ position on national security. There is no story in which the Bush Derangement Syndrome does not determine their response. I’ve seen little interest in the Photoshop story at places like Kevin Drum’s blog. When they do respond in comments, they take the GG side. Ahmadinejad worries about the Americans’ lack health insurance so he’s a nice guy. Israel is the one being demonized in the Photoshop ploy. So ? Everybody on the left knows that A-Israel is a tool of the US and therefore bad. or B-The Bush administration is a tool of Israel.
Either way, the left knows how to react. Hate Bush.
These stories are a little like the Soviet non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939. Communists could be identified for decades afterward by their reaction to the pact.
It must be tough on left-wing Jews who feel the need to run with the pack but who must have a sneaking suspicion about the growing anti-Semitism of their pack mates.
Mike K (416363) — 8/16/2006 @ 6:31 amSpeaking of “Beanwald,” get a load of the new attempted purge of all non-Beanwaldian libertarians, by a pseudo-libertarian Beanwald sycophant. I’m not going to tell you what the sycophant’s name is, but let’s just say her … um, I mean, his or her … name rhymes with “groan, uh.”
Xrlq (f52b4f) — 8/16/2006 @ 7:15 amHe has no excuse.
Oh, I’m sure Wilson is busy thinking of one!
No matter, the issue has been framed for them: the right is once again “over-reacting” to a couple of “isolated incidents.”
The Ace (8154cd) — 8/16/2006 @ 7:21 am[…] Everyone’s favorite ethically depraved screechmonkey is defending the Reutersgate propagandists, unsurprisingly enough. Patterico has done the dirty work of wading into the sock-puppet septic tank so you don’t have to; enjoy. And Ace has more, as you no doubt expected, including this: “I love how ‘Gleen’ and his liberal “moderate” allies claim they’re all so against the “biased rightwing” media, and yet defend their excesses at every turn.” […]
Cold Fury » Lying liar’s lips moving again (6f4592) — 8/16/2006 @ 10:55 amTwo little photographs…
tyree (b2fade) — 8/16/2006 @ 12:39 pmIsn’t it interresting how so many keep focusing on how few photographs were actually retouched, without mentioning the obvious. Since all of the changes were anti-Isreal, doesn’t that prove the existance of bias?
Here’s a thought experiment:
Have there been more proven incidents of altered photographs, or more proven incidents of US soldiers acting criminally?
In both cases, we’re asked not to prejudge. In both cases, there is a “system” in place to deal with the bad acts of a few.
I suspect whether you think the media has done a better or worse job of policing itself than the military has (remembering that the military started investigating Abu Ghraib before it was in the headlines) says a lot about how you view the institutions of the military and the press.
Lurking Observer (ea88e8) — 8/16/2006 @ 1:00 pmI saw another liar about Reutersgate – Eric Boehlert at Huffington Post, who said yesterday that Reutersgate was all about one “Reuters news photo that was marginally altered.” Boehlert is a guy who also has written for Salon. I know this because I remember him on Salon defending Dan Rather’s fake documents and attacking LGF for calling them fake. So he’s just a liar.
I guess I’m just mentioning this here because last night I took the time to write a comment at Huffington Post but for whatever reason it never wound up being posted. Huffington’s place is frustrating that way. Also…I’m mentioning it because that’s their talking point about Reutersgate – pretend it’s about a little extra smoke in one photo. I guess they don’t care much about their credibility.
LoafingOaf (a90377) — 8/16/2006 @ 3:08 pmLoafingOaf, sadly for the idiots at HuffPo, there is more. Much more.
The Ace (8d7f7b) — 8/16/2006 @ 5:59 pmThere’s a lot of “substance” in what Glen scribbles — Phlogiston to be exact. Burn baby burn — is that a rep going down in flames I smell?
Purple Avenger (811c33) — 8/17/2006 @ 2:21 amMore Glen Greenwald asshattery…
…has an advanced case of Stockholm Syndrome ……
purpleavenger (59ce3a) — 8/17/2006 @ 2:30 amDidnt he write a book or sumthin? About the little boys in Brazil?
Rivka Mermelstein (6a100c) — 8/18/2006 @ 11:54 amI think there’s new paradigm that goes something like this: The depiction of current events (formerly called news) has been relegated to those who produce entertainment/propaganda. The industry formerly know as the “News” now needs to go by the moniker ‘What’s Hapenin’ or ‘Fairy Tales of the Present.’
Ernest Latross (cb49ce) — 8/20/2006 @ 6:45 am