January 04, 2007

The Moonbats (Finally) Notice Jamil Hussein

UPDATE: Karl at protein wisdom has a well-linked summary of the story thus far.

Better late than never, I suppose.

Despite a virtual moonbat blackout of the Jamil Hussein story for most of its life so far, they're all a-twitter now. Turns out the moonbat bloggers knew about the story all along--they just didn't want to publicize it. Now that they see a chance to ding the media skeptics on our side, they're all over the story.

TalkLeft has this to say:

If you have been following the Right Wing Blogs' campaign against an AP report of a November burning of a mosque in Iraq where 6 Iraqis died, you wil have learned that the campaign was discredited today when the Iraqi Interior ministry admitted that AP's source did exist.

But what is interesting to me is why did this story of literally hundreds of reports of Iraqis being killed cause such a stir? I suppose it was because the US military and the Iraqi interior ministry denied that AP's source Jamil Hussein, worked for the Iraqi police. But the AP strongly and unequivocally stood by its story and insisted Hussein not only existed, but was in fact an Iraqi police officer, even naming the station where he worked.

The Right Blog campaign on this always struck me as odd, to say the least. It seems hard to understand why AP would manufacture a story of violence in Iraq. Did the Right think there was not enough true stories of Iraqi violence?

The lefties don't get it. It's not about whether Iraq is violent. It's not about whether Baghdad is a mess. It's about whether or not we can trust the news coming from our mainstream news outlets. It's about whether they have mechanisms in place to ensure that the stories they're serving up can be independently verified. It's about the overall quality of the news reporting from the Middle East. Yes, one side is in total denial, but it's not the right side.

MORE BELOW THE FOLD

At a blog called "Blogger's Blog," they're expressing disbelief that right-wing bloggers have had the audacity to question the Associated Press:

What is significant about Jamil Hussein is that some conservative pro-Iraq War bloggers actually believed Jamil Hussein, a frequent Associated Press (AP) source, might not exist.
Of course, the alternative to believing he might not exist was to be thoroughly convinced that he did exist despite the conflicting evidence. Anyone who sat at his computer stateside and thoroughly convinced himself of Jamil Hussein's existence based on news reports, and despite the factual controversy, is a credulous fool.

Over at Firedoglake, Jane Hamster has the following thoughts of love to share:

I don't know how the notion got circulated that the right wing blogosphere was anything other than the toenail clippings of the Mighty Wurlitzer. Check that — I do know. After they got used like a bunch of tools by the GOP to launder the Dan Rather story, they sat around pounding their chests like they were actually capable of independent thought and action and a bunch of stupid people believed it.

They can't raise money. They can't organize. They can't even acknowledge that they've been beating a dead story into the ground because like their fearless leader, they equate admitting they are wrong with failure. Yet they are wrong, almost all the time and about almost everything.

You'll see this meme all the time on the lefty blogs. "Always wrong all the time about everything." They repeat this mantra in the hopes that the mantra can stand on its own without any factual underpinnings. Of course, the lefties rarely provide actual examples of right-wing bloggers being wrong--and when they do, it's generally some issue they take with a choice of wording or some conclusion drawn from the available facts, as opposed to facts presented. They're desperate to catch us in a lie or a mistake, and when they can't find one, they'll just make one up.

Prior to this most recent revelation, anyone who claimed to know conclusively whether Jamil Hussein did or did not exist was going beyond the available facts and drawing unwarranted conclusions. The right-wing bloggers identified the conflict in the facts presented by two major sources, and put the burden of clarification on AP. This was exactly the right thing to do. AP was, after all, thought to be the party having the most direct ability to clear up the conflict. If the AP had produced Jamil Hussein, they would've been vindicated. They had the incentives to present additional evidence. Instead of being forthcoming, the AP refused to take any further steps to clear up the conflict of evidence, and a lot of bloggers (myself included) leaned heavily toward the idea that they didn't establish the existence of Jamil Hussein because they couldn't.

Nevertheless, the Booman Tribune continues pushing the lie that this story is only about the level of violence in Iraq:

Oh how Michelle and her acolytes jumped all over the Associated Press, accusing them of using terrorist propagandists to spread false stories in the US media about the true situation on the ground in Iraq. Why she even planned to go to on a trip to Iraq (funded by ex-CNN executive Eason Jordan, and at his express invitation) to ferret out the truth regarding this so-called police captain Jamil Hussein and the AP's skullduggery in using him as a source for a series of "scurrilous and slanderous" stories dating back to 2004.
Yes, they're on fire right now, because they see a chance to tarnish the right-wingers. Would we have heard a peep out of them if Jamil Hussein turned out to be a fabrication? Not hardly. Will we hear a peep out of them if Hussein's stories turn out to be lies? Don't bet on it.

Instead of attacking us for our skepticism, the lefties should be joining us in it. After all, we all have an interest in knowing the true facts. Truth shouldn't be a partisan issue.

By Ragnar Danneskjold, Typical Bitter Gun-Clinger at 11:04 PM | |