Letters to the Editor
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Wow Glenn
Michelle Malkin almost sounds like you! In fact, if I read her text unquoted here I wouldn't have thought twice about it.
This issue raises, as always, interesting larger questions about blogs vs the MSM. As noted, Lopez tried to blame her failures on the medium, so she started it---but Malkin is ending it.
Malkin et al. are way out there, to be sure, but they didn't cut their teeth reporting for the Washington Post or the NYT. That means she didn't learn the usual corporate butt-covering ethics and procedures. Nuts she may be, but I am reminded more than ever of the state of Anglo "journalism" in the 17th through 19th centuries: completely irresponsible and unregulated, but real. Broadside writers then were not afraid to be extreme or to be wrong. It's not a bad thing.
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lolly
Lolly pleads that the writer had neither the time nor the military background to verify the story. When I took journalism back in high school, we were told that we don't put that stuff into print. We TAKE the time. We TALK to military commanders, we VERIFY our sources. Then, when the story gets to the editor, the editor makes sure that the reporter has done that. If he lies to his editor, he is fired and his name sent to every other paper in America. The paper apologizes to the readers and the editor offers to commit hara kiri (that's an exaggeration, of course).
You cannot plead that the job was beyond the reporter. If it was, he or she should not have been a reporter.
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Anyone Buying the Hezbollah Flag Capture Angle?
"I snatched a Hezbollah flag -- the yellow banner with the green fist and rifle -- from one of the enemy's strongholds in Lebanon recently. And when I say stronghold, I literally mean a strong, heavily defended battle position where the Lebanese Army and police dare not enter, and I had to enter covertly."
People are cricticizing him for irresponsibly doing this. In his defense, I'm sure he made up the whole story and bought the flag at some market somewhere. What a legend in his own mind.
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re update2
You know... this is almost enough to make me sad you aren't practicing law right now - or, if you are I sure as the heck don't know where you find the time - because when it comes to digging down to bedrock, I imagine there are few as tenacious as you. Not sure which side of the political spectrum you're on, Glenn, but as you so ably demonstrate, post after post, it genuinely doesn't matter. If you claim the territory, it is no longer unclaimed.
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@ GG
Mea Culpa, I acknowledge that AP declares Bilal Hussein did not take the Haifa st pic, but claim the caveat that they won't say who did.
As for conservative blogs, surely you aren't going to claim the left wing has a monopoly on the truth?
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or, ...
If I'd wanted to be a bit more poetic, I'd have said...
The truth is no longer an orphan.
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Baldie McEagle? huh.
If ya's want to delve into dark moments in American history, read the Outlook Section - Present at the Creation - The Smart Way To Beat Tyrants...by Donald Rumsfeld.
They ( war-mongers ) are for real?
Do you want to read classic projection? Read.
What is said in the Wa/Po can be inwardly, turned inward.
Read. Today's global order is threatened. It is not only threatened by global extremist, rogue regimes, failing states, and aspiring despots such as "Bush"...it is also accompanied by the complacent growing menace of "neoconservatives"...in that the neocons are unprecedented lethality.
Pundits tend to focus on hampering efforts for world peace. Public commentary in the leading conservative journals do much serious serial killing for oil. President Bush has demonstrated the most vile, despicable, neoconservative era we have seen in 'our' modern, this 21st-day's history.
Read it on the Outlook Washington Post Section.
P.S. Read Opus, Mark Trail, and Pickles etc., too.
Yep, Donald Rumsfeld, who was secretary of defense in 2006, instructed his staff on how to respond to a demand for his resignation.
"Talk about Somalis, the Philippines, etc., Make the world realize they are surrounded by violent extremist." FEAR!
Rumsfeld's missives were obtained by the Wa/Po and were reported ( November 1 ). Rumsfeld is derogatory. He wishes us to fear violent extremist? Muslims are "evil" and hurt global oil wealth investments, he wants us to believe.
O, Pinch me? Do the memos suggest ignorance as well, or
as dark-prejudice----and only a small fragment of the Muslim world has ever benefited from oil wealth, right? okay. So- to be consistent, we hear the neoconservative 'badmouth' others... but they actually, in reality, give clear insight into THEM? They are saying nothing intelligible...it's classic projection!
As in classic ill-Projection notion? It's just my layperson opinion.
Why no comprehend?
'Um no say any truth.
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Shooter's Powerline
As for conservative blogs, surely you aren't going to claim the left wing has a monopoly on the truth?
-- shooter242
As to the specifics of your inane question, that is, of course, for Glenn to answer if he chooses to do so. But I can tell you, as you most likely already know, since you read this blog regularly, that Glenn has listed right wing blogs and writers who he puts some faith in telling the truth.
The specific conservative blog in question in your post was Powerline. Powerline has been proven to be liars on numerous, numerous, numerous occasions. So you are either thick headed and beyond capable of learning from being stung, or you are knowingly and wantonly passing on their lies and misinformation, or you are, for reasons unknown, incapable of walking away from proven liars as your source of information even knowing that they are misleading you.
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FactChasers!
Making up facts so you don't have to!
http://factchasers.com/about.html
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Shooter gets it!
Shooter... the left wing has a monopoly on the truth.
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Kitt and Glenn
So then, to you, a lie that could add to a provocation for the United States to declare war on, or at least invade, another country is a "who freaking cares" kind of thing as far as you're concerned? Is that what you are telling us?
@Kitt: That's the best De Niro I have ever seen in a blog comment. But, to answer your question, no, that's exactly not what I'm saying. I'm saying that whether that lie is bigger or smaller than Beauchamp's lie is a "who freaking cares" kind of thing. It's a lie and it deserves outing. Spending time debating which is worse only distracts people from the real issue.
Name one thing about which they weren't transparent.
@Glenn: Well, for one thing, I think a retraction that starts out talking about "For months, our magazine has been subject to accusations", goes on for 14 pages of "you can see how this sort of thing might happen to someone", and only in the last paragraph (which you can't even get to without reading up to page 11) reluctantly concludes that they can't be 100% sure that the article was 100% correct - I think such a retraction is, itself, less than transparent.
But really, I was going to point out that, in the beginning, they said the article was extensively fact-checked. Unfortunately, TNR has actually removed all of their earlier posts on the matter. That, itself, is also rather non-transparent, wouldn't you say?
Luckily, archive.org still has the original Plank post from July 26:
"The article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published..."
Wouldn't you think that "by his future wife" would be a good thing to mention, in the interests of transparency, sometime in the intervening four months? Or, really any time before page 3 of the retraction?
The point isn't whose scandal is bigger
Apparently, your editors took the same message away from your article as I did, because the subhead right above this text box says:
The leading conservative journal is caught in a far more serious scandal than the TNR/Beauchamp controversy that it helped fuel.
If that wasn't the point, then you might have strayed from the point. Which is a shame, because your real point is not only valid, but crucial.