You are quite welcome, but…don’t know if you have paid any attention to anything I’ve written (mostly at Bob’s place where I tend to hang out mostly but occasionally at VDH and recently at Big Lizards…[not sure why any blogger busy working on putting out news would pay attention to a specific poster...but, you never know, so I ask out of not knowing...not out of pride of authorship], but I’ve been complimenting and THANKING you guys with some frequency).

I think on this issue, (which I see as an important addition to the struggle to retrieve (get back…if possible) SOME ethical journalism…[as opposed to caricatures of truth, truthiness, and leftist propaganda], and that you…as a part of a battalion of good people willing to stand up against the stranglehold on our information stream, ought to be profusely thanked…in fact, that we ought to get down on our knees every night and thank LGF, Glenn, Michelle, you, Bob, VDH, Patterico, the Powerline guys, …all of you…because I don’t believe there is an issue in our lives which trumps this one for importance. I believe that with all my heart and soul.

I have said this more than once. If our lines of communication are tainted, (a first item of battle strategy in the war for hearts and minds), if our information stream is corrupted…if the places where our opinions are shaped and formed is unworthy of belief…then that touches EVERYTHING we do and say and act upon as a country.

For those in the volunteer front lines, the “grass roots” resistance to the tyranny of the so-called “reformers”,who have owned our information stream, virtually lock, stock and barrel for 40 years (talk radio, Fox news and blogging being relatively recent events)…and have arrogantly corrupted it…to an extent where there is now a full fledged anomie of the press…(they make the rules up as they go along, feel no constraints on following ethics or morals)…then every bridge you blow up that makes it more difficult for them to cross back over with more of their distortions and misrepresentations, for every train of “truthiness” and “fauxtography” you destroy…for every Green Helmet Guy you expose…the “resistance” wins a battle for truth and integrity.

Does it win the war? Not yet. The pen is mightier than the sword at times, but it is not mightier than the swarm. They have a 40 year head start, they have all the alphabet network news stations, the major city newspapers, the wire services, the NPR, all of Hollywood and virtually every humanities professor on campus. And have formed the Ministry of Media with all those sub-divisions, who all have rote memorized the playbook and sing from the same hymnal. They have ZERO tolerance for allowing anyone to speak outside the playbook (see, eg Lieberman)…and they really don’t care if the “facts” are in their favor or against them…because the “message” is the only important thing. If the facts are contrary…then they are simply trifling things to be “changed” to conform with the “message”. We get “replacement facts”…after all, they are only casting pearls before swine, anyway.

Here’s my take on the AP’s reaction. You (and Bob for the most part) have changed their behavior. It got their attention (and that of Tony Snow, apparently). This is a good thing. A great thing. It is, in and of itself…a victory for the good guys.

They stonewall, they obfuscate, they lie in wait and change tactics. Not the best result, but it is a de facto recognition that the corruption of truth is acceptable and that we have not surrendered to “truthiness”.

Did it “correct” their behavior? No, I’m afraid they still feel too powerful. But it changed it. You shined a light on them and they scurried back under the baseboards.

You highlighted another piece of the PATTERN…two thirds of the country doesn’t believe they are giving us the truth. That’s a start. When Patterico shines a light on the LA Times…that’s a start. When the NY Times is caught in yet another Blair fiasco, that’s a start.

Someone…more eloquent than I am…will put this jigsaw puzzle together and begin to weave the whole story into a picture that the masses will comprehend. These are not isolated, unconnected incidents. This is a pattern of behavior. Arrogant, despicable and destructive.

When the story of Cronkite lying about the Tet offensive and when the Green Helmet guy and Reuters fauxtography and the BBC’s blatant anti-semitism, when Blair, and Rather and the whole lot of them…when all of this is unveiled as the pattern of conduct that it is…then, and only then will we see real meaningful changes in behavior.

When WE stop treating these things as unrelated, when WE stop excusing their behavior as isolated incidents or unconnected events…when WE stop saying they were probably “duped” into yet another distortion, when WE stop accepting distortion and misrepresentations as being “ok” because, that’s just what they think and how they think…and start to say “Enough…no more”…then we will see real changes.

A corrupted information stream is reflected in the polls, in the voting booths, in the laws we allow to be enacted, in our decisions to move forward with policies and plans. We suffer when it is corrupted, each and every day. Until we get people to see this as a pattern of behavior…they own the information stream. We need to do a better job of connecting the dots.

Until then, they believe it’s their game and they play it by their rules…which is to say…by no rules at all.

So, from the bottom of my heart…thank you. I believe you guys are saving my country. Because you are saving the information stream from their stranglehold…and allowing us a few breaths of fresh air.

Great links Mark, I’m gonna need those for future posts.

Appreciate the compliments CFBleachers. I agree 100% with your take on this thing. Question is was their enough head generated by this story to force the AP to change? I would have to say no. They have since changed to putting every source as anonymous which makes everything easier for them to print whatever news they see fit.

Different country. But the same propaganda wave.

You’d think they’ll have to start teaching this “course” in journalism skools. Jayson Blair will deserve a cut in the revenue stream, however.

ANd, talking about “revenues.” How do these people get paid? The AP doesn’t just “gather news” as if they’re out on a hike. And, anything they pick up in the jungle is there’s.

Checks go out.

And, when you’re dealing with public companies; (where you can buy stock if you think these organizations deserve your investment capital), then you could ask, “how was Jamail” paid for his “tips.”

The answer can’t be “inside the tip jar.”

As to the stories? All of them are fake.

And, there’s nothing new to that type of garbage, either. For about four years (1861 through 1864), the press was way behind Grant’s lines. They never even laid eyes on him! But the stragglers? They were the one’s who feared being in front. So they went into slow motion, back in the rear. And, this crap was the “hoyle” on grant.

Of course, after about four years suffering major losses, Lincoln finally wised up to the HERO OF OHIO. Only one State backed Grant, throughout. And, in desperation, which happens when the upper eschelon is stuck on saluting their own crap; Lincoln finally turned to Grant.

And, then? It took the British, who do top notch jobs investigating battles, after the fact. They’re like firemen, after the fires have subsided. Where they can go in and reconstruct the facts.

ACTUAL FACTS: Grant was a marvel! One of America’s best generals, EVER! (And, when this stuff hit the textbooks, it opened the eyes of Pershing. Which opened the eyes of MacArthur. And, Patton.)

The good stuff.

It sticks around long after the garbage gets collected. Disposed of. And, the bins of history are swept clean of the dust. Truth is an object you can then hold in your hands.

I added my trial lawyer’s bazillion words in the comments section at Big Lizards (and elsewhere).

I agree with you and CY. This IS a story that needs telling. I come to the same conclusions, although down a slightly different pathway…but all roads lead to Rome, here. I simply do not believe the AP was “duped”…their subsequent behavior and the manner in which the stories are used, then backed up, then stonewalled and not corrected, do not lend themselves to that conclusion.

And I don’t believe that “Jamil” was a “source” as I define that term. I believe someone playing “Jamil” exists…but, I’m sorry…that’s not acceptable for verification of facts for me.

And, even trial lawyers understand that sometimes you simply know things intuitively that you can’t “prove”. The example in first year law school classes in evidence primers…is “If you we go to bed at night and there is no snow on the ground and we wake up and the entire area is blanketed in snow…it snowed while we were sleeping”. We don’t have “evidence” of that, but there is no other sensible explanation. And it would take a Rube Goldbergesque explanation to convince us otherwise.

Likewise, “being Jamil” the ubersource for all knowledge of all horrific acts everywhere…is simply not believable. Without giving my full argument here again, …his reading the teleprompter for AP’s scripting of “replacement facts” is not acceptable. THAT’S the story. And a million thanks to you and Bob for telling it. You deserve praise, in my opinion, not criticism. Again, many thanks.

1) AP (that’s Associated Press, not to be confused with Allah Pundit) produces the person of, or verifiable evidence of the existence of, a Captain Jamil Hussein who works or worked at the al-Khadra police station. At this point AP is not off the hook, but will still have to provide sufficient evidence of the “Burning Six” story to satisfy at least neutral observers before their lost credibility is regained. I doubt seriously that this will happen as it is unlikely that a Captain Jamil Hussein has been kept hidden from so many interested observers, or that the MoI enjoys having egg on its face. Could they be protecting him from a little “Sadr justice”? Many things are possible, but it boggles the mind that the good Captain would have agreed to be named in 62 AP stories detailing Shiite-on-Sunni violence if he was concerned about his name getting out.

2) AP, perhaps with the cooperation of the MoI, ignores Curt and others until, finally, Curt collapses from sheer exhaustion. This one is more likely, as Curt alone cannot generate sufficient pressure to compel the AP to do anything. For that he requires the active cooperation of many others. For Curt, this is the “big one”. For the Malkins and Allahs of the world, it is just another feather in their respective caps if it plays out. Without some development, they will eventually move on. Once that happens and Curt is alone, he either quits the story or becomes the Don Quixote of the MSM hunters. Don’t get me wrong, what he’s done already has caused significant erosion in the AP news machine’s credibility rating, but the damage is survivable.

3) AP ceases the evasion tactics and cuts the arrogant condescention and comes clean, determined to turn over a new leaf and buy back their credibility through hard-nosed self-examination. We learn of bad process and lazy reporters allowing their lust for blood to trump their scepticism. Or worse, we learn that some reporter(s) collaborated to produce exaggerated or completely fictional accounts of anarchy in the streets of Bhagdad. Another possibility is that we learn the stories are legit, but the source managed to sneak in a little name-misdirection to avoid repercussions, or with AP’s or the reporters’ cooperation. The argument against this eventuality is that, once the process issue is sufficiently explained, the AP is still on the hook for the veracity of the stories. I believe that, if they manage to validate the “Burning Six” story, they will get a pass on the rest. But if they can’t, all of the remaining sixty-one (at least) become suspect and will become the subject of a blogswarm.

A police captain reports to an Iraqi stringer, who passes the story to Steve Hurst, who writes the story for AP, who releases the story to the world as a factual story?

EXCEPT——- the original police captain (Jamil Hussien)doesn’t exsist or was the ghost writer for Captain Jamil Ghlaim, who claims he is NOT THE SOURCE…..and along the way the story has been changed about a half dozen times?

AND——- this police captain (who claims not to be the source) may have reported 61 storys that were released to the world as FACTUAL?

Are we still looking for a “source”? Or is the Associated Press publishing their own history of the war in Iraq?

I think that the AP are just idiots. Who else would, after their main source of this story is questioned, use someone like Imad al-Hashimi as a back-up? Actually they claimed he was more than a back up they say he broke the story..

“Hussein was not the original source of the disputed report of the attack; the account was first told on Al-Arabiya satellite television by a Sunni elder, Imad al-Hashimi”
http://www.ap.org/response/response_112806a.html

So after a month an a half of everyone questioning this story they still haven’t read enough of THEIR OWN stories to know that THIS guy should be the last person to use.

I mean, is he a;

“a Sunni elder IN Hurriyah” ~ http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-24-car-bomb_x.htm?csp=34

“a RESIDENT of Hurriya district” who is “a university academic” ~ http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=96006&GRP=A

“university teacher” ~ http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-11-25T130154Z_01_COL153081_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1

“a university professor VISITING Baghdad” ~ http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061125/asp/foreign/story_7048908.asp

or just “a resident ” ~ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=dcd50b570f9cd1f0&ex=1322110800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

and just what does this Sunni elder who is a visiting resident teacher say he saw?

“three women, three children and two men were badly burned BUT SURVIVED when gunmen threw petrol INTO THEIR HOMES and set fire to the buildings” ~ http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-11-25T130154Z_01_COL153081_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ.xml&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1

people who were drenched in kerosene and then set afire, burning to death before his eyes. ~ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/23/world/main2207491.shtml

“people were killed and wounded. When the gunmen moved on to attack another mosque we evacuated the wounded” (how nice that he is a hero,) ~ http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061125/asp/foreign/story_7048908.asp

Also where did he give his interview?

“Imad al-Hashemi said in a telephone interview on Al Jazeera” ~ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5090&en=dcd50b570f9cd1f0&ex=1322110800&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

“Imad al-Hasimi….. told Al-Arabiya television” ~ http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/23/world/main2207491.shtml

And this is there eye witness… but wait which mosque was burned?

“The attack on the small MUSTAFA Sunni mosque began as worshippers were finishing Friday midday prayers.” http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-28-iraq-fire_x.htm

and where was Imad al-Hashimi?

“he was in the NIDA ALLAH mosque when it was attacked during Friday prayers.” http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061125/asp/foreign/story_7048908.asp

Great eye witness, he was not even at the same mosque!

If they don’t even bother to take the time to look at this Hashimi’s statements before they hold him up as a cooberating witness for a story they are under fire for, I don’t think they care where they get their stories from, if the person is giving their real name or even if the stories are true.

I think a first year english student would fail the class if they submitted something this poorly fact checked.