We're not sure who this is a criticism of -- Laura Bush, or more generally, the people who complain about the lack of "good news" coming out of Iraq, without bothering to provide evidence to back up their claims that the press is ignoring all that good news. So let's just start from the top.
ThinkProgress flagged an interview MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell conducted with first lady Laura Bush this morning, where she asked the first lady about a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that shows only two in ten Americans approve of the job that her husband is doing on Iraq.
The first lady responded with a swipe at the media saying, "I do know that there are a lot of good things that are happening that aren't covered. And I think that the drum beat in the country from the media, from the only way people know what is happening unless they happened to have a loved one deployed there, is discouraging."
O'Donnell then quoted the first lady as saying that she hopes that there is "more balanced coverage by the media." She also said "I understand why the polls are what they are because of the coverage we see every day in Iraq."
So you see, the president's poll numbers aren't bad because his administration has bungled the occupation of Iraq, but rather because the media has reported the carnage that his failed policies have created.
There's a reason the press dwells on the constant stream of car bombings, mass kidnappings, suicide bombings, the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi government, and the daily discovery of mutilated bodies dumped on the streets of Baghdad: These things are, in part, the reality of life in Baghdad, and to a lesser extent, cities like Karbala and Mosul -- the population centers of Iraq. In other words, imagine that New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. were engulfed by an endless cycle of bloody violence, and people were complaining that the media was focusing their energies there, while ignoring a new irrigation project in Kansas.
Of course there's more happening in Iraq than car bombs and sectarian murder -- children are going to school, couples are getting married, having children. But the job of a journalist, in Iraq or anywhere else, is not to write about the 99 percent of things that function as they should. How do these "good news" stories in Iraq stack up against 70 civilians getting blown up in back-to-back car bomb attacks, furthering the spiral of civilian casualties?
Beyond that, as I noted last January while embedded with a Marine unit in Iraq, a lot of small, "good news" stories go unreported every day in Iraq because the security situation just doesn't allow reporters to go out -- unaccompanied by the military -- to get them. More to the point, as Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran noted in his excellent book about Iraq, "Imperial Life in the Emerald City," there were times during his two years in country when a reporter would request to go with the military to a newly opened power plant or school, but the military would turn the request down, saying that if the project got too much press, the insurgents would attack it.
When people complain that the media focuses too much on the violence in Iraq, they seem to be suggesting that the violence isn't as pervasive as the press makes it out to be. But the Iraq Study Group report found that the truth of the matter is that the level of violence in Iraq has actually been underreported. "The standard for recording attacks," the report says, "acts as a filter to keep events out of reports and databases. A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack ... A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count. For example, on one day in July 2006 there were 93 attacks or significant acts of violence reported. Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light 1,100 acts of violence."
So, Mrs. Bush, where is all the outrage about the media underreporting the violence?
Paul McLeary Spews Even More Nonsense
"the job of a journalist, in Iraq or anywhere else, is not to write about the 99 percent of things that function as they should."
padikiller responds
And THERE you have it!...
Of course the MISSION of the occuapation of Iraq is make things "function" the way they "should be" functioning...
Mr. McLeary claims that reporting on the successes of this mission is not "the job of a journalist"... Apparently, only the difficulties and setbacks of the mission rate coverage.. I'd sure like to know where he dug up this nonsense...
More importantly, however, Mr. McLeary mischaracterizes the prevailing criticism of the MSM coverage of the war... Namely that the MSM is COLLUDING with the enemy.
It is one thing to report on the causualties of war... This is news, no question about it... And it is also nes to document setbacks and struggles... It is another thing to hop into bed with the enemy...
The examples of this collaboration are nearly endless...
CNN's censoring of coverage of Saddam's atrocities for its own purposes... AP's Puliter-prize winning terrorist/photographer Bilal Hussein, and the AP's cover-up of the circumstances of his capture... The AP's invisible "police captain" Jamil Hussein and the non-existent bodies of the six Sunnis who were supposedly "burned" alive... The recent MIT/Johns Hopkins claim that more than a half a million people (three percent of the total population) of Iraq have been killed in the last three years.. CNN's airing of what it admitted to be enemy propaganda-the deaths of our soldiers at the hands of enemy snipers...
Story after story of non-existent massacres... Inflated casualty counts... Unreliable anonymous sources... Refusal to investigate claims mistakes... Hiring local stringers and parroting their reports without fact-checking... Etc.. etc.. etc..
THIS is the criticism the MSM faces... And tries to ignore...
Want proof?... Why doesn't the AP simply produce Capt. Jamil Hussein, since it has named him as a source of the story of the "burned-alive Sunnis" and has stated that he is a police officer?... Why doesn't the AP (or Paul McLeary) tell us how Bilal Hussein allegedly tested positive for explosives at the time of his arrrest in the company of senior terrorists?...
HUH?..
Well, I have some news for you "professional journalists"... Bloggers are on the way to Baghdad right now to track down the AP's "source"... WHY is this fellas?... WHY can't you do your damned jobs?...
Because you are biased and incompetent liberal mouthpieces, for the most part... That's why...
Paul McLeary (a prime example of the aforementioned mouthpiece) is just tryng to dodge around the issue of MSM credibility by confusing the issue... A typical CJR tactic.... CJR actually paid some flunkie to travel on an extensive trip Texas on a laughable (and futile, of course) mission to find a magical typewriter capable of producing the MS Word font (Times New Roman-with the default settings right out of the Microsoft box) found on the fake memos that got Dan Rather canned (despite the ridiculous defense but up by his MSM buddies-including CJR).. But CJR can't summon the resources to find a single named police captain on the payroll in Iraq?...
THIS ladies and gentlemen is the REALITY here...
Go ahead and report the bad things in a war.... Even do so at the expense of balanced coverage if you insist for some political slant..... BUT DON'T AID AND ABET THE ENEMY!
Now this is hilarious! Padikiller is waiting on Michelle Malkin and Flopping Aces to find the TRUTH in Iraq.
Did you see Bartlett & Snow flying into Iraq back when it was safer?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061301463.html
They looked like they needed a diaper change. Want to bet your 'bloggers to the rescue' won't even leave the Green Zone?
You crack me up. You've bought into every one of the wingnut talking points. Have you ever had an independent thought in your life?
not the senator wrote (paraphrasing):
Blah, blah, blah... I don't like padikiller... Blah, blah, blah... Padikiller is irritating me.... Blah, blah, blah... Bitching about padikiller keeps me from having to deal with reality... Blah, blah, blah... I don't like bloggers either... Blah, blah, blah... Bloggers a bunch of wimps..... Blah, blah, blah...
padikiller asks
Hmmm....
Since you seem so familiar with conditions outside the Green Zone, my liberal little friend... Do you have any idea where we can find Police Captain Jamil Hussien, the AP's source for its story on the six invisible (thus far) Sunnis "burned alive" in Iraq?...
Phone number?... Email?.... Address?.....
HUH?.....
And while you're at it, not the senator...
How about showing me a typewriter from the early 1970's that can produce the DEFAULT MS WORD TYPE found on the amateurishly forged Rathergate memos?...
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12615&only
Can you do that for me, Sport?...
HUH?...
This is too funny. The keyboard patriots are going to Iraq. LOL. About the captain Central Command stated they had no record of him. Which means nothing really. CC added that if he did exist he wasnt authorized to speak to the press. Eric Boelert take over-"Central Command then filed an official complaint with the AP and demanded a retraction.
The AP stood by its story, though, calling CENTCOM's allegations "ludicrous" and noting that Hussein had been providing AP reporters with reliable information for months. The AP also didn't think much of CENTCOM's suggestion that reporters only quote people found on the government's approved list of sources.
For the record, along with Hussein, the AP based its Burned Alive reporting on an account from Imad al-Hashimi, a Sunni elder who told Al-Arabiya television about the killings. (He later recanted his story after being visited by a representative of the defense minister.) The AP also spoke to three independent eyewitnesses (two shopkeepers and a physician) and confirmed the story with hospital and morgue workers. Nonetheless, CENTCOM raised doubts about Hussein, so warbloggers, hearing a reassuring narrative they loved, pronounced the AP guilty of manufacturing news and quickly referred to Hussein as a "fake policeman" and to the Burned Alive story as a "fairy tale."
Bilal Hussein has been without charge by the military since April 06. The US military refuses to provide any hearing or process of any kind for him to learn of the charges or contest them, and refuses to respond to AP's requests for information about why he is being held. The AP has never attempted to cover up anything in fact they are trying shine a light on situation. Bilal took photos that the right did not like, photos dont lie however. The rightwing blogs complained for months about his photos before he was arrested. From Glenn Greenwald "The Bush administration and its followers have long equated the reporting of facts which reflect negatively on the administration with subversiveness and even treason-- a twisted, authoritarian mindset illustrated most recently by Lynne Cheney's accusation to an absurdly surprised Wolf Blitzer that CNN wants the terrorists to win because they broadcast video footage of insurgents shooting at American troops. That premise leads inexorably to the conclusion that journalists who report facts that undermine the administration's claims are not just unfriendly but criminal, that they are not just helping the Enemy but are the Enemy itself."
The Lancet study used universally recognized statiscal analysis. The actual methods included obtaining data by eight Iraqi physicians during a survey of 1,849 Iraqi families -- 12,801 people -- in 47 neighborhoods of 18 regions across the country. The researchers based the selection of geographical areas on population size, not on the level of violence. How strict were their standards? They asked for death certificates to prove claims -- and got them in 92 percent of the cases. Even so, the authors say that the number could be anywhere from 426,000 to 800,000. Also Muslims don't believe in embalming or open casket funerals days later. They believe that the body should be buried by sunset the day of death, in a plain wooden box. So there is no reason to expect them to take the body to the morgue. Although there are benefits to registering with the government for a death certificate, there are also disadvantages. Many families who have had someone killed believe that the government or the Americans were involved, and will have wanted to avoid drawing further attention to themselves by filling out state forms and giving their address. Further some bodies are just dumped into the rivers by their killers.
Journalism 101 - Illustrated Beginning Techniques For "Professional" Investigative Journalists
Capt. Jamil Hussein can be found working for the Iraqi police... Where?... His phone number is... What?... The names of the six Sunnis this "police captain" claims were burned alive are... What?... Their bodies were buried.... Where?... Neither Al-Jazerra nor Ed Wong of the NY Times were able to corroborate the burning... Why?...
The AP knew for five months that Bilal Hussein allegedly tested positive for handling explosives after being captured in the company of two high-level terrorists last May- yet sat on the story... Why?... The AP has consistently refused to report the circumstances of his capture... Why?...
The Iraqi data collectors in the "scientific" Lancet study were.... Whom?... The religious and political affiliations of these collectors are... What?... The sample groups were chosen systematically, instead of randomly... Why?... The study relied on "word of mouth" for cooperation from subjects... Why?.... Replacement sample clusters were chosen... How?....
Bilal Hussein tested positive for explosives? Really bc the blogs say so. The US military states he was rounded up with 2 terrorists, nothing about explosives. This explosive bit seems made up out of whole cloth.AP responded that they have to deal with "unsavory characters" at times. Again he has not been charged for 8 mos. now. Charge him or release is the APs point.
You want me to provide an Iraqi phone #?! Please get real. I explained why AP ran the story, they had multiple confirmations. Could it be false, I suppose so. AP in the article explains their sources. Does this somehow diminish the fact that the country is awash in horrific violence. Tens of people are found everyday blindfolded, handcuffed, and with drill holes throughout Bagdad. You want to argue that this didnt take place go ahead. Just under 2 million have left a country of 26 million. Another million have been displaced internally. 3,000 or more die every month. The Iraq Study Group reported that the US military vastly underreports the level of violence. US military reports one day of 92 acts of violence- in actuality there were over 1,100 acts.
The Lancet study was done by John Hopkins/MIT as far as I know. These schools are known for being thoroughly descredited and doing sloppy work. I explained how the study was done, Sunni and Shia areas were covered. If you have degree in statistics or research please dispute their claims.
You readily believe anything written on little green footballs or other right wing sites. I am sure you are as rapid in denying their "opinions" as well. You seem to believe what you want to believe. How many times have rightwing sites made wild speculations later proven to be false. I'll give you the latest conspiracy theory put out by keyboard patriots.
The secret service under Clinton eavesdropped on Princess Diana bc her boyfriend was a potential opponent of Hillary. Damn her monstrous quest for power. Except that the whole story was false. This didnt stop a week of rampant speculation and accusation.
William Hammond, historian, did a study for the Army in 1989. He found that it was not the press coverage of the wars in Korea and Vietnam that cause disaffection at home. It was the death tolls, when casualties jumped, support dropped. The press reports were accurate. The press reports are accurate today. The American people want the truth about how their sons and daughters are doing in Iraq and what they are up against. That is a good thing. Are sacrifices, lots of money and years of fighting needed in Iraq? If yes then tell us so. But for the love of God dont tell me its not that bad, we are winning and the good is not reported. BC if the good is reported it gets literally blown up the next day, be it a school, plant, or whatever. If this thing is damned what options are left. BC having marines getting blown up on the same roads for the last 3 years is criminal as a Replublican recently noted. I have yet to hear Bush explain what victory is.
Matt Babbles Nonsense
Bilal Hussein tested positive for explosives? Really bc the blogs say so. The US military states he was rounded up with 2 terrorists, nothing about explosives.
padikiller cleans up Matt's mess
"AP reports have buried the U.S. explanation that Hussein is being held without charge because - quite aside from producing photos that showed him to be overly intimate with terrorists in Fallujah - he was in an al-Qaeda bomb factory, with an al-Qaeda bombmaker, with traces of explosives on his person when he was arrested."
http://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=170263
Matt drones
I explained why AP ran the story [the six Sunnis supposedly "burned alive" in Baghdad], they had multiple confirmations.
padikiller doles out the truth
The AP claimed to have 5 sources for its original article. The so-far invisible police captain, Jamil Hussein- a man that Iraqi authorities and CENTCOM both say is NOT a police captain... Another named source who has since RECANTED... And three more anonymous sources...
NO bodies... NO scene... NO names... NO nothing!...
THIS is "professional journalism" at work...
GROW UP, MATT!...
Matt blithers
The Lancet study was done by John Hopkins/MIT as far as I know... ...I explained how the study was done
padikiller drives it home
You have done no such thing. The Lancet study has been universally discredited by serious academics.. Its conclusions are simply absurd... Its methodology was flawed and subject to abuse. The local data collectors used were ANONYMOUS.. SO there is no way to double-check the collection procedure... The study depended on participants to "spread the word" of the purpose of the study in order to bring cooperation-a plain no-no that invites abuse- and the sample clusters were sampled no randomly, but instead systemicatically, by a process that is not explained...
In other words... Anonymous Iraqi data collectors went to cherry-picked areas and blaabed about the purpose of the study to solicit participants...
THIS Matt, is the reality here.. And THIS Matt, is why the Lancet study ended up concluding ridiculously that something like 10 percent of all Iraqi male adults have been shot in the last couple of years... A result so silly that even the most liberal academics scoof at it...
Of course, the "watchdogs" here at CJR have encourages "professiona; journalists" to refrain from skepticism of this Lancet nonsense... (Skepticism is reserved for GOP policies)
Learn things...
THEN post!....
So silly. Once again the AP stated that Bilal Hussein provided reliable info for months. The morgue said they recieved burned bodies. Yes as I pointed a Sunni man recanted after being visited by Interior Ministry officials (shia). Look again at APs multiple confirmations
The photographer was rounded up with 2 terrorists as per US military. The reports I read state he was arrested at his house in Ramadi, by marines, not a bomb factory. (gee those blogs wouldnt make something up would they?) This man was a shop keeper selling electronics in Falluja before the war.
Your Boston Herald link is an opinion piece and he gets his info from rightwing blogs. Tom Curley, the AP's president and CEO, says whenever the military has given specific details, the AP has taken them seriously and tried to investigate. Some of those investigations showed that the claims "were false or total exaggerations," he says. "I have no problem saying the Pentagon lied to us more than once."
Curley and other AP executives say they think Hussein's real crime was taking pictures of insurgents on their own turf or in combat situations--in other words, pictures the military disliked. I find no official US statement that he had explosives on him. The rightwing blogs hated his photos bc they showed the brutality and true cost of war. This is good thing. Wars should not be overly sanitized. The brutality of wars reminds us that diplomacy should come first.
The number of estimated deaths claimed by the study is inconceivably huge, and wildly out of scale with any previous figures we've heard. But it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the human suffering in Iraq has been far beyond our imagining.
The peer-reviewed study's named authors include three researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University -- one of them Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the school's Center for Refugee and Disaster Response -- and a professor from Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University. Funding for the project was provided by MIT. These are not shabby credentials.
No one should find the basic concept unfamiliar, because it underlies such mainstays of modern life as public opinion polls and market research. The survey team picked what was deemed to be a representative sample -- in this case, 1,849 households scattered throughout Iraq (a representative sample is not cherry picking) -- and used that sample to draw conclusions about the population as a whole. That's the same method pollsters employ to predict who will win an election.
I dont know one "serious academic" that has descredited the report. Unless you consider Bush a serious academic.
The Johns Hopkins team reports being 95 percent certain that the true figure lies between about 400,000 and about 900,000 -- a large range of uncertainty that some critics have seized upon as discrediting the whole project.
Again the ISG states that the US military "vastly" under-reports acts of violence.
I encourage you to continue being a skeptic.
Other AP executives said that their review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system. Out of the 420 of Hussein's photographs that the AP reviewed, Lyon said that only 37 photos show insurgents or people who could be insurgents; "The vast majority of the 420 images show the aftermath or the results of the conflict - blown up houses, wounded people, dead people, street scenes."
AP executives also claim the military has not provided any concrete evidence to back up the vague allegations they have raised about him. AP International Editor John Daniszewski said that the AP was told that Hussein was involved with the kidnapping of two Arab journalists in Ramadi, but the AP tracked down the journalists, who said that Hussein in fact had helped them after they were released by their captors without money or a vehicle. The two journalists says that they had never been contacted by multinational forces for their account. Scott Horton, a lawyer in New York hired by the AP to work on Hussein's case, said that the military has also provided contradictory accounts of whether Hussein himself was targeted or simply caught up in a broader sweep.
Also Michelle Malkin is the one that started this in the right wing blogs. Her source is "an anonymous military source". She accuses Bilal of staging photos and being a terrorist. Originally her source told her that Bilal "was captured earlier today by American forces in a building in Ramadi, Iraq, with a cache of weapons." (Her April 12th post). Now he was captured in a bomb factory.
Matt plagiarizes
The number of estimated deaths claimed by the study is inconceivably huge, and wildly out of scale with any previous figures we've heard. But it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the human suffering in Iraq has been far beyond our imagining.
The peer-reviewed study's named authors include three researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University -- one of them Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the school's Center for Refugee and Disaster Response -- and a professor from Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University. Funding for the project was provided by MIT. These are not shabby credentials.
From The SF Chronicle Website
The number of estimated deaths claimed by the study is inconceivably huge, and wildly out of scale with any previous figures we've heard. But it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the human suffering in Iraq has been far beyond our imagining.
The peer-reviewed study's named authors include three researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University -- one of them Gilbert Burnham, co-director of the school's Center for Refugee and Disaster Response -- and a professor from Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University. Funding for the project was provided by MIT. These are not shabby credentials.
padikiller lets loose
I'm not going to wast time arguing with a cut-and-past thief...
You are nothing but an MSM parrot, Matt..
And a dishonest, ignorant one at that..
yes I cut and paste and add in my own 2 cents as well. Not at all ashamed of it. This is not college course or doctorate program. Its a comment section of blog. I also cut and pasted from wikipedia, American journalism review and Juan Cole. I will label in future. You link, I cut and paste.
You parrot what you read in rightwing blogs. Your link is example of the echo chamber. It starts with Michelle Malkin and her one "anonymous source" and gets repeated ad naseum in blogoshpere and talk radio ending in your boston herald link. Its repeated so many times people think its true.
You wont respond bc other blogs and newspapers have shown that your rants are baseless. The fact is you cant respond to them, cut or paste or not. Your response is a weak cop out. Take your ball and go home if you dont like the way I play.
I am just curious how a weapons cache becomes a bomb factory.
I am ignorant of many things. The level of violence in Iraq is not one of them. From Reuters- paraphrasing here- Saturday 53 bodies found in Bagdad, in other areas 3 GIS killed, one shiek assassinated with campanion, 2 civilians killed, 2 policemen at checkpoint, 10 unidentified bodies brought to Baqaba morgue. And you believe no one was killed in Basra and elsewhere your nuts.
Believing that the press is aiding and abetting our enemies is parroting fringe, authoritarian blogs.
I remain skeptical. I still dont know where Bilal was picked up-just know it was Ramadi. I still dont know if those Sunnis were burned alive. I know AP had multiple sources and one recanted. This is better than Michelle Malkins one anonymous source. I believe the Lancet study is more accurate than Bush's "30,000" civilians killed.
I suspect you are not going to have the courage to respond but it looks like you and the keyboard patriots were wrong again. I continue my thieving ways. From Majikthise via Editor and Publisher NEW YORK Has the mysterious and much-disputed Associated Press source in Iraq, a police captain named Jamil Hussein -- finally been found? His existence has been challenged in the past three weeks from the U.S. military, some Iraqi officials and conservative bloggers in the U.S.
A blogger named Marc Danziger who has followed the debate claimed late Saturday that he believes he has positively identified the captain at the Yarmouk police station, just as the AP had claimed, although (if this checks out) his first name may be spelled Jamail, not Jamil.
Though far from definitive proof, it was strong enough to cause at least one conservative blogger to wonder if those who had mocked the AP might have to eat “a huge shinola sandwich.”
Just Thursday, Eason Jordan, the former CNN news chief now launching a Web site called IraqSlogger, had earned headlines by offering to fly Michelle Malkin to Baghdad to search with him for Capt. Hussein. She had accepted, and the IraqSlogger site now runs an urgent plea for tips about Hussein’s whereabouts in a crawl at the top of its site. [Editor and Publisher].
Further rain on your parade. AJR.org has an excellent article by Charles Layton "Behind Bars" about Bilal. He has exchanged emails with officers from Task Force 134,the unit currently responsible for his detention. The article points out that Bilal may have been targeted for arrest and provides evidence of this. Another embed jouralist saw Bilal labelled as a terrorist wanted for arrest on a US military poster.
As for the accusations of bomb making and weapons the Charles Layton writes "A few weeks ago, when I asked the public affairs officers at Task Force 134 to clarify the issue of the cache of weapons and the bomb-making materials, they backed off the accusation altogether. Here is their reply:
'During his capture multiple items of evidentiary value were seized by the capturing unit. Although no weapons were discovered, several items believed to be used in the construction of Improvised Explosive Devices were recovered. The ensuing investigation concluded that the suspected IED materials were not relevant to Mr. Hussein's case.' Again no weapons found. As for IED materials that could be normal items such as a timer, bleach, or ammonia. Go read the article it was posted today.
Matt the Plagiarist Cut-And-Pasted Yesterday's News
...it looks like you and the keyboard patriots were wrong again... ...A blogger named Marc Danziger who has followed the debate claimed late Saturday that he believes he has positively identified the captain at the Yarmouk police station, just as the AP had claimed, although (if this checks out) his first name may be spelled Jamail, not Jamil.
padikiler replies
WHOA there, Sport!...
Who said this "Jamail Hussein" is a captain?... I've read Danziger's blog and I find no such reference.. Where are you getting this information?...
Your ass?...
More importantly,.... WHO did you sat may have tracked down Jam[a]il Hussein?...
Did you say a BLOGGER did it?...
HUH?....
NOT a "professional journalist"?...
Well... Let's see what shakes down here, my sticky-fingered little liberal friend.... There are discrepencies to be resolved between this particular Mr. Hussein and the AP's reported source... (Name.. Position... Title... Location... Etc..)
According to CENTCOM and the Iraqis, even if Hussein actually does exist... And even if Hussein sticks by his story of the "burned-alive Sunnis" in the face of scrutiny (the other named eyewitness recanted, remember)... He is acting outside of his authority in releasing official information...
Thus his motive is suspect...
But we aren't there yet... We need some of those "fact-thingies" that the "professional journalists" have a problem finding...
But never fear... The blogosphere is all over this one...
You "professional journalists" hold tight... Just stand by the water cooler while the new media tracks down the truth.... You can read about on Drudge tonight and still have time to get it into tomorrow's copy...
Danzinger states that Jemail Hussein is a police captain at Yarmouk as per Majikthise link. His motives are suspect bc he was acting outside his authority? What were the motives of Malkin's unnamed military source acting outside his authority? By the way the bomb factory, weapons cache turns out to be IED material "not relevent to his case" as per US military. That is big difference-no weapons some IED "material" as compared to bomb factory/weapons cache. I await professional journalist turned blogger Eason Jordan's update and challenge to Malkin. Some blogs I trust others have shown to be spreaders of baseless lies and wild speculation. Like Drudge and Malkin.
Off the top of my head Drudge stated that Kerry had an affair with campaign worker. Remember that one-completely false.