Patterico's Pontifications

1/6/2007

E&P Nonsense on Jamil Hussein

Filed under: General,Media Bias,War — Patterico @ 10:22 am



E&P has a couple of pieces about Jamil Hussein. One chronicles Kathleen Carroll’s response as the Winning Party in this Vicious and Irresponsible Attack on the AP‘s Credibility:

“I never quite understood why people chose to disbelieve us about this particular man on this particular story,” Carroll told E&P, referring to Jamil Hussein, an Iraq police captain. “AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq.”

Let me explain it to you Ms. Carroll. It would be because there are many reasons to doubt the story. They are listed here and in the links in that post. The fact that you actually have a source doesn’t mean your story was correct, any more than Dan Rather’s documents were correct because they were provided by a real person and not cooked up by CBS.

Here’s another one I forgot to mention in that post: despite your claim that Jamil Hussein had always been a source of reliable information, he had indeed previously provided you with facts that your own reporters were unable to verify.

At least Carroll doesn’t paint all conservative blogs with the same brush:

When asked what she though [sic — the spellchecker doesn’t catch that! — Ed.] of bloggers who criticize other media in light of this incident, Carroll would not condemn all of them. “I wouldn’t say bloggers are this unanimous group, there are smart and responsible blogs that help you and there are those who are water cooler blogs,” she said. “They are not any more monochromatic than the more conventional news media.”

Not so for E&P, which runs an incredibly dishonest piece painting Allahpundit and me as “Hussein doubters” — and insinuating that I said Allah had no reason to apologize for being a Hussein doubter. That is complete horseshit, as I was praising Allah for being appropriately skeptical of the conservative claims regarding Hussein’s status as a policeman. Allah warned conservatives weeks ago that there could be a mix-up with names, and not to get carried away with claims about Hussein’s existence. I issued several caveats myself, repeatedly warning bloggers not to concentrate on claims of Hussein’s nonexistence. By painting Allah (and me) in a false light, E&P is on the same level as folks like Eric Boehlert, who misquoted See Dubya and falsely claimed that he’d never expressed any sympathy for a killed AP reporter. Apparently these people believe that if they feel that they are on the right side of the issue, they can say any damn thing they please about anyone, and no research is required.

I respond to this E&P piece in UPDATE x6 of this post, which sets forth many of the caveats Allahpundit and I had about assuming Jamil Hussein didn’t exist — caveats that we began to express on November 30, the first day that the Iraqi government gave us specific reason to doubt their claims on this issue.

There’s no question that I initially believed the MOI’s assertions and took them as fact. If you ask an employer whether someone works for them, you normally expect them to know. It’s obvious that believing them — and especially reporting their claims as fact in a post on November 27 — was a mistake on my part, as I have already acknowledged. I reversed my attitude of unquestioning acceptance within three days, but I should not have been so unquestioning to begin with. Mea culpa. It’s a good lesson for the future to be more skeptical of all sources. At this point I don’t think I’d accept the Iraqi government’s word about anything.

But that doesn’t excuse E&P painting cautious bloggers like Allah as being wild-eyed Hussein doubters. Allah is (in the words of my pal See Dubya) the conscience of the conservative blogosphere, and spends a lot of time trying to rein in some of the more rabid bloggers. He won’t say so, but E&P’s characterization of him as a rabid Hussein doubter is patently unfair. Not that they care.

Dafydd ab Hugh [UPDATE: Actually Sachi — see UPDATE below] has a monster post on this which is worth a read. I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it — you have to say that nowadays, or people will point to your link as a “favorable link” and attribute every last link in the other person’s post to you. Just another item from their bag of tricks they use to distort people’s words and slander them.

Finally, Allah has said, extensively, that questioning war reporting is not the same as saying everything is hunky-dory about the war. It quite obviously is not. Allah’s comment on this is worth reposting:

The only thing that really annoys me about the left blindly defending the AP here is the argument, made most emphatically by Eric Boehlert, that we’re using this incident somehow as a fig leaf for how bad things are in Iraq. If the AP turns out to be lying, the theory goes, we’ll declare all reportage from Iraq suspect by extension and conclude that things aren’t nearly as dire as they seem to be. Which, of course, is patent nonsense. There are Shiite death squads operating in hospitals in Iraq; if you knew nothing else about the country, you could glean from that fact alone how unspeakably horrible conditions are throughout the country.

We’re not using this story as a fig leaf for the war. On the contrary, it’s Boehlert — the same guy who wrote a book claiming that the media is, giggle, right-wing — who’s using the war as a fig leaf for the AP’s anti-American bias. According to him and his pals, to challenge the veracity of this story is to be guilty, essentially, of historical revisionism, of denying the brutality Iraqis are facing. Oh sure, they say en passant, if the AP got it wrong they should be called on the carpet for it — while in the same breath they dismiss the charges as a “smear campaign” or “baseless” or whatever conclusory pronouncement you prefer. They don’t care if the AP blew it or not. They say they do because they know they have to. It’s purely pro forma.

The truth is, and you can see this in Boehlert’s piece or Tom Zeller’s piece in the Times a few weeks ago, they think the AP story is true in the Larger Sense, as a microcosm of the brutality in Iraq, even if it’s not, you know, technically true. Which, my friend, is just another way of saying “fake but accurate.” That’s precisely the line they’re taking on this story, which is why it’s so outrageously disingenuous of them to pretend to give the slightest shit about whether Jamil Hussein is real or not. As far as they’re concerned, if he’s real, the story’s true; if he isn’t real, the story’s True. Heads they win, tails we lose. And the AP, if it’s guilty of bad facts to whatever greater or lesser degree, gets an almost completely free pass. It’s more important that Michelle Malkin be wrong, you see, than finding out if the world’s biggest news agency is passing off crap stories about the most important issue of our time. Repulsive.

Mark my words: unless Danziger comes back with a categorical denial that Jamil Hussein exists, they’ll trumpet whatever facts about him redound to the AP’s advantage even if on balance the AP looks bad. For instance, if it turns out he exists but he’s not a real cop, the news on the lefty blogs will be “HE EXISTS.” And then they’ll set about showing why it’s not a big deal that he’s not a real cop, even though the AP has been claiming he’s a real cop for months now. Anything they can do to shore up the AP’s credibility, any argument they can make, they’ll do it, because like I said above, that’s what this is really about — protecting the left-wing media from a credible charge of malfeasance, even though it wouldn’t mean much in the grander scheme of how awful things are in Iraq.

By the way, my comment in response to that read:

Did anyone ever claim that the AP had just made up this guy out of whole cloth?

I completely agree with Allah’s take on this. Things in Iraq are bad. In fact, in some ways, things may be worse than many realize, largely due to our decision to repeat the failures of the end of the Vietnam war. Nobody responsible is saying everything is great there, and the lefties who claim that we are, are liars. Pure and simple.

UPDATE: The Dafydd ab Hugh post is actually by Sachi — which means, Dafydd tells me, that Sachi wrote the first draft, and Dafydd did the editing and added about 1/3 of the content, spread throughout the piece. Dafydd tells me that every “Sachi” post is a collaboration along those lines.

UPDATE x2: OK, I’d better clarify that as well. Dafydd writes to say that my UPDATE might falsely suggest that Sachi doesn’t write her own stuff:

I assure you that normally, I merely *edit* what she wrote; I don’t rewrite it! All the core ideas, the
structure, the specific examples, the basic phrasing, and the research was Sachi’s.

When I edit Sachi (or anyone else), I rephrase somewhat here and there; I find a great argument that she buried and unbury it; I tell her she
needs to find some links to justify such and such (but I don’t find them for her: she’s perfectly capable of finding them, and I’m perfectly
capable of being the laziest slob on the face of the planet!); I tell her places she needs to sharpen her focus, because I don’t quite
understand what she’s driving at; I often make her rewrite… just like a newspaper editor.

Sorry for the confusion.

33 Responses to “E&P Nonsense on Jamil Hussein”

  1. “Dan Riehl, another blogging Hussein doubter, responded today, “Fascinating. But let me be the first to say to the Left, before they lose themselves in glee, I don’t see that bloggers have anything to apologize for, nor do I see this story being at an end.” He and others now promise to check out Hussein’s record as a source — now that they have to admit that he actually exists”

    Apologize? What’s that? Oh. Admitting error
    and taking responsibility. Well, if 3000 dead and
    a Trillion dollars in Treasure with it’s attendant cheerleading and shameless enabling of a disabled
    Commander-In-Chief doesn’t elicit some regret, how could this insubstantial imbroglio qualify?

    Start your engines inSURGEents, your signature clusterF–k, Iraq, still has your Plausible Denialism safe from any 12-Step program..

    Semanticleo (e8f396)

  2. “Let’s leave Greenwald out of this, okay?” suggested the link whore.

    Dan Collins (208fbe)

  3. Did anyone ever claim that the AP had just made up this guy out of whole cloth?

    At a minimum, there were the customary dark hints that he didn’t (that’s w/o looking). And, if he can’t be found, I’m sure we’ll see similar (although slightly crazier) dark hints that the AP had him killed.

    jpe (6ab25c)

  4. Goodness.

    It didn’t even take a moment for the fundie lefties to start chirping “Look over there!! 3000 dead!! Grim Milestone!! Bawk! Cindy want a Cracker!! Bawk!”

    See Semanticleo, the subject under discussion is the AP’s apparent journalistic malpractice – that’s been the whole heart of the matter since day one. Try staying on topic, or – if you must insist that President Bush et al are evil – do so on you own blog, and have the courtesy to allow the person paying for the bandwidth your pathetic progressive puling is taking up to host a discussion on subjects in which *he* is interested. M’kay, cupcake?

    And no leftie anywhere, at any time (ever!) has explained how freeing millions of people from oppression is something for which to apologize. You might want to be the first to try to tackle *that* subject if you want to have a discussion of the merits of liberating Iraq.

    On your own blog.

    Abraxas (52f32e)

  5. The fact that you actually have a source doesn’t mean your story was correct,

    But we do have michelle malkin, who will go to iraq and find out whether these particular 6 people actually died.

    actus (10527e)

  6. Uh, no. Apologies are the topic, as the host introduced the subject. If what I say disturbs you,
    ignore it.

    Semanticleo (e8f396)

  7. What is it about Patterico that Jeff Goldstein’s trolls come here? Is this the next step up or the next step down from Protein Wisdom?

    Lurking Observer (a69a7e)

  8. They want to tangle with the site proprietor, Lurk, and Jeff’s hosting a family event today.

    Dan Collins (208fbe)

  9. “What is it about Patterico that Jeff Goldstein’s trolls come here? Is this the next step up or the next step down from Protein Wisdom?”

    Sorry to disturb your private retreat and comfort zone.

    Semanticleo (e8f396)

  10. Dan;

    Goldstein goes out of his way to engage me. He’s not interesing enough to tangle with. BTW, your posts are a step up for PW.

    Semanticleo (e8f396)

  11. That’s kind of you, cleo, though I disagree on behalf of the regular readership, of whom I am one, who will be very happy to see Jeff back.

    Dan Collins (208fbe)

  12. As far as they’re concerned, if he’s real, the story’s true; if he isn’t real, the story’s True. Heads they win, tails we lose. And the AP, if it’s guilty of bad facts to whatever greater or lesser degree, gets an almost completely free pass. It’s more important that Michelle Malkin be wrong, you see, than finding out if the world’s biggest news agency is passing off crap stories about the most important issue of our time. Repulsive.

    Hey, it’s actually a little different. With Jamil Hussein’s “blog” (with a truly disgusting last entry), with Michelle concluding her first post on this subject with “MSM credibility, R.I.P” and her v-blog rant about “Associated (with Terrorists) Press”, with all the contempt for AP’s stringers that keep on dying in this war zone, you guys obviously overplayed your hand. Sure, lefties are now somewhat overplaying theirs, but this has something to do with the number of stories promoted by, say, Michelle which turned out to be complete nonsense.
    Allah, actually, misrepresents “lefty” logic. In fact, it goes like this: we don’t believe that AP would fabricate their stories, since reality on the ground is bad enough. The idea that it would do such thing looks very much like a conspiracy theory, and most of the “righty” arguments in this story are very much conspiracy theory-alike.
    Allah’s arguments are in fact indistinguishable from the “truthers'” argument: those that laugh at “truthers” “don’t care if the government of the most powerful country in the world would commit such horrible act for their evil reasons”. Wrong, they laugh at “truthers” because they are laughable.
    To see this the story of Jamil Hussein as just another conspiracy theory is a sort of commonsense approach, which means that we, “lefties”, don’t look deep in all your “arguments”, don’t consider all the niceties of your “unanswered questions” — every conspiracy theory, once started, never ends, every answered question leads to two unanswered, the conspiratorial thinking is capable of inventing endless very complicated constructions (I’ve already read about Eason Jordan “setting up” Michelle).
    “We” lefties don’t have a definite proof that this story is BS. But we have a very strong gut feeling that it is. Of course we might be wrong. And of course 9/11 could be an inside job.

    NN (9c16c2)

  13. Again where is Jamil hussien ? Its been 3 days since he was supposed to have been “Arrested”

    Is he in custody ? Is he running free ? Does he even exist again ?

    Bill Amos (b7c504)

  14. NN,

    Please don’t say “you guys.” I have not shown contempt for the AP’s stringers. To the contrary. And I have never thought the AP was fabricating anything; I thought their source had the facts wrong, for whatever reason. And I still do. And we know that the AP had reason to doubt one of the previous stories Jamil Hussein had fed to them — even though they later denied this.

    I agree with you that the presence of unanswered questions is not the be-all and end-all — unlesss the questions are: “Why did you guys get the facts wrong?” That is a significant unanswered question, and that’s what we appear to have here.

    Patterico (906bfc)

  15. I agree that plenty of commenters are engaged in conspiracy theories — like Eason Jordan setting up Michelle. And I have argued with them about that. If you look at my comments to Hot Air’s initial post on the relevation that Hussein is a policeman, you can see this. There are plenty of conspiracy theorists in that comment thread, but they don’t include me or Allah.

    Patterico (906bfc)

  16. Semanticleo,

    Oh.

    Apologies are the topic, are they? Well then, can I look forward to an apology from the progressive trolls on this site for their unwavering support of the past century of genocide conducted under the aegis of Socialism/Communism?

    I won’t even pretend that either you or any of your fellow travellers will accept that challenge.

    So we’re not *really* interested in “apologies”, are we?

    You cannot be intellectually honest for even a moment, can you? (Another couple of questions I won’t pretend you’ll answer)

    And while you’re eminently worthy of ignoring (I just like poking progressives for fun; it’s like clubbing baby seals!)- no, what you have to say does not “disturb”. It barely “annoys”, and that’s on a slow day. Because you’re not really sad about 3,000 dead – you’re happy that you can attempt to lay those dead at conservatives’ feet in exchange for a few more electoral votes. It’s not “disturbing” because it’s what the world has come to expect of liberals – standing on the corpses of Americans spouting overblown rhetoric in search of political advantage.

    For today’s example, see; Frank, Barney.

    Here it is again for you: If you want to explain how freeing millions of people from oppression is something for which to apologize, do it on your own blog, and stop hijacking bandwidth that ain’t yours with your bumper-sticker pronouncements. I’ll join you there shortly to debate the question.

    Promise.

    Meanwhile, on the topic under debate: E&P Nonsense on Jamil Hussein (it helps to read the titles, Semanticleo – don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it one day!); the MO of the left has become very clear over the past decade – progressive apologists ignore the root of the issue (journalistic perfidy, just as a “f’r instance”) and focus on subjects that have nothing to do with the question at hand, to wit –

    Example A: “Jamil Hussein exists! Therefore all the bloggers who questioned whether mosques and bodies were burned were wrong!!”

    Example B: “There are 3,000 dead! Therefore anything Conservatives have to say about Iraq is wrong!”

    Example C: “The former President only lied about sex! Therefore nothing Sandy Berger stuffed down his pants is relevant to the war on terror!”

    Ad Infinitum.

    Abraxas (52f32e)

  17. The Big Lizards post you link to is actually by Sachi, not Dafydd…

    Neville Chamberlain (80a4fa)

  18. NN,

    Just for the sake of argument, can it be purely that the AP’s credibility as a news organization is being called into account, rather than they are part of some leftist conspiracy?

    In other words – that they got these reports by dubious means and passed them along with little or no fact checking.

    What happens when we assume simply that and no more?

    I submit that this illuminates a more insidious problem than mere bias – rampant incompetence from source to editor to publisher.

    Abraxas (52f32e)

  19. If what I say disturbs you, ignore it.

    Better advice than you realize, obviously.

    Jim Treacher (15574e)

  20. I think it’s unfair to lump you in here. To that extent, you have a very legitimate beef.

    But there exists a very real and very disturbing tendency on the right side of things to deny the obvious reality of what’s going on in Iraq and to demonize the media for contradicting the freaking fairy tale they believe in.

    I believe that you are concerned with being a watchdog for media fairness.

    But, Glenn Reynolds, this “Curt” character, Austin Bay, the LGF crowd, etc are only interested in attacking and silencing anyone who debunks their mythology. People who tell the truth are labeled as “empowering the terrorists” by these nutjobs.

    You’re an honest critic, but those above-mentioned folks are either dishonest hacks or delusional fools. Either way, they have ZERO credibility on Iraq or the media in general.

    Or on the Terri Schiavo memo.

    Or on the John Kerry photos.

    [I’ll admit, and have admitted, that I printed the Kerry photo. While I made no claim about it, I did characterize him as “lonely” — something that I corrected as soon as I learned it was wrong. And while I didn’t claim that Democrats wrote the Schiavo memo, I said it was at least equally likely as its having been written by Republicans. I’m not really ashamed of that, although it turned out that the memo had been written by a very stupid staffer for a very stupid lawmaker. I guess I should be ashamed for underestimating the stupidity of some in the GOP . . . — P]

    Geek, Esq. (fbd491)

  21. And no leftie anywhere, at any time (ever!) has explained how freeing millions of people from oppression is something for which to apologize. You might want to be the first to try to tackle *that* subject if you want to have a discussion of the merits of liberating Iraq.

    Because they are still oppressed by anarchy and civil war.

    This has been another episode of “Simple answers for stupid questions.”

    Geek, Esq. (fbd491)

  22. Please don’t say “you guys.” I have not shown contempt for the AP’s stringers. To the contrary. And I have never thought the AP was fabricating anything; I thought their source had the facts wrong, for whatever reason. And I still do. And we know that the AP had reason to doubt one of the previous stories Jamil Hussein had fed to them — even though they later denied this.

    Well, I agree that you have been unfairly characterized by E&P, and were, in fact, on the saner and more skeptical side of this controversy. You’re a victim of sort of collective blame. There are “skeptical truthers” who say something like “we would very much like to find that it was not an inside job, but there are just so many things that don’t fit”.
    I think right blogosphere suffers very much from having Michelle as their mainstream figure. Her behavior in this story and many other stories was very far from moderate. She did show contempt for stringers, she did come to conclusions without much evidence, she did finish her last post on this story with outlandish quote about “religious fascism concealed behind uniform”. And, you know, this quote, not from some marginal blog, is just childish:

    Michelle Malkin has consistently written that the hunt for Jamil Hussein was a secondary goal in her Iraq embedding. The first goal, and now the only goal, is to to do what few MSM folks are doing, actually reporting from the field.

    “These pussy journalists, [only 130 of them dead so far] Michelle will show them how the real professionals work”.
    There’s a general feeling about right-wing arrogance, with countless examples, like Bill Kristol’s comment about “pop sociology in America that the Shia can’t get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime”. If the right-wingers were eager to marginalize their extremists, just as liberals, obviously, marginalized people like Chomsky, it would be different. Sure, it’s not fair, but don’t say you didn’t deserve it to some degree. Muslims suffer from unfair generalizations ten times more.
    Sure, you were smeared by E&P. But it was mainstream right-wing blogs that smeared Kerry with “he hates troops” insinuation, with “snubbed by the troops” insinuation, and, most outrageously, with “Kerry coddles Syrian tyrant” insinuation, when he, in fact, was searching for the ways to help Lebanon shake off Syrian influence — and I haven’t seen them sorry about this.

    That said, personally, I checked some of the claims about AP’s stories and don’t find them convincing. I see “four burnt mosques” episode as a case of “fog of war”/”lost in translation”: there was probably fire in all four mosques, but only one of them proved serious, i.e. it was burnt to the ground. Many of the arguments about “six burnt Sunnies” are dishonest. The story was confirmed by many other witnesses. It made a lot of fuzz on Iraqi message boards. “It was not on his beat” argument is pure truther madness.

    NN (9c16c2)

  23. Jamil identified, facing arrest? — Day 3 Updated and bumped…

    CENTCOM says AP’s Iraqi police source isn’t Iraqi police — Part 31 — Continued from this post. Never was the patient type. I’m ready for mugshots, or at least a CENTCOM news release. It’s been a good 32 hours since…

    Bill's Bites (72c8fd)

  24. Am I missing something? Where is the guy? Can at least U.S. military types question him about the alleged crime and what HIS sources were?

    “Jamil is identified” is not the same thing as “the burning six story is true”, especially when there’s no evidence that he has indeed been identified. It’s only the first step to square away in the process of verifying this story.

    Still, it sounds like a terrible crime. Relatives of the deceased should be questioned. There should have been a forensic sweep of the location where it took place. Such a serious crime in this fragile security environment absolutely should be pursued, prosecuted and punished, in the interests of justice. I would hope AP and other journalists would continue to investigate and follow up on this story to fill in the gaps.

    mrj (75a4c8)

  25. Relatives of the deceased should be questioned. There should have been a forensic sweep of the location where it took place. Such a serious crime in this fragile security environment absolutely should be pursued, prosecuted and punished, in the interests of justice.

    Now if only Michelle would go there and with her magical powers make these things happen. Comments like this prove that there’s indeed underlying wish to prove that Iraq is the land of freedom and prosperity. “Forensic sweep of the location”, very realistic.
    Six people killed at once — a serious crime in Baghdad? Are you joking?

    NN (9c16c2)

  26. […] To borrow a favorite phrase from my favorite discredited sock puppeteer, Rick Ellison McEllensburg: this is who they are, and this is what they do. Just like I predicted. […]

    Hot Air » Blog Archive » Media Matters lies about HA’s response to Jamilgate (d4224a)

  27. Six killed doesn’t meet the bar for a serious crime? I would think innocent people being burned to death in public would be considered a heinous atrocity, even amid all the other terrible violence. I’m sure the family members want to know who’s responsible. If the military has not even a limited forensic capability, you’d think there’d be some physical evidence to exploit, i.e. fuel residue, burn marks on the sidewalk, blood, etc…

    There are still plenty of unanswered questions about this, beyond the existence of Jamil, including the most important question: If this crime ocurred, who did it, and why.

    mrj (75a4c8)

  28. If this crime ocurred, who did it, and why.

    There was in the northern part of Greece a land called Macedon; and this land was at one time ruled over by a war-like king named Philip.

    Philip of Macedon wanted to become the master of all Greece. So he raised a great army, and made war upon the other states, until nearly all of them were forced to call him their king. Then he sent a letter to the Spartans in Laconia, and said, “If I go down into your country, I will level your great city to the ground.”

    In a few days, an answer was brought back to him. When he opened the letter, he found only one word written there.
    That word was “IF.”

    –The problem is still this “if,” you see, mrj.

    Dan Collins (1e2e08)

  29. […] I’ve only mentioned the Jamil Hussein story twice in passing because I didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said by better writers than me. But I do have to note one thing. AllahPundit was exactly right on how the left would react. Can you call that a win? Yes, if the prize is a pitcher of warm spit. We’re not using this story as a fig leaf for the war. On the contrary, it’s Boehlert — the same guy who wrote a book claiming that the media is, giggle, right-wing — who’s using the war as a fig leaf for the AP’s anti-American bias. According to him and his pals, to challenge the veracity of this story is to be guilty, essentially, of historical revisionism, of denying the brutality Iraqis are facing. Oh sure, they say en passant, if the AP got it wrong they should be called on the carpet for it — while in the same breath they dismiss the charges as a “smear campaign” or “baseless” or whatever conclusory pronouncement you prefer. They don’t care if the AP blew it or not. They say they do because they know they have to. It’s purely pro forma. The truth is, and you can see this in Boehlert’s piece or Tom Zeller’s piece in the Times a few weeks ago, they think the AP story is true in the Larger Sense, as a microcosm of the brutality in Iraq, even if it’s not, you know, technically true. Which, my friend, is just another way of saying “fake but accurate.” That’s precisely the line they’re taking on this story, which is why it’s so outrageously disingenuous of them to pretend to give the slightest shit about whether Jamil Hussein is real or not. As far as they’re concerned, if he’s real, the story’s true; if he isn’t real, the story’s True. Heads they win, tails we lose. And the AP, if it’s guilty of bad facts to whatever greater or lesser degree, gets an almost completely free pass. It’s more important that Michelle Malkin be wrong, you see, than finding out if the world’s biggest news agency is passing off crap stories about the most important issue of our time. Repulsive. […]

    Pursuing Holiness » Blog Archive » AllahPundit Wins! Sorta… (bc33d8)

  30. Agreed, Dan, and it’s a big if. At this point, AP has got to come up with some evidence that this happened, if they want it to go away. Why not give Jamail immunity from arrest for talking to media, and ask for his source. Further, there should be a penalty for fabricating news, and a very public correction of the record.

    The statement that Jail exists, in essence, proves nothing.

    jordan (75a4c8)

  31. Sorry, I meant Jamail.

    jordan (75a4c8)

  32. Six killed doesn’t meet the bar for a serious crime? I would think innocent people being burned to death in public would be considered a heinous atrocity, even amid all the other terrible violence.

    I would think not. There are ethnic cleansing going on non-stop in Baghdad, with 30% Sunni areas turning into 0% Sunni, and with police complicit in this. What difference does six innocent [which is, BTW, not fact] people make?

    NN (f82c0b)

  33. Hmmm. So Shia and Sunni are ethnicities. I guess that inner city gang stuff is ethnic cleansing, too.

    Dan Collins (1e2e08)


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