Michelle Malkin's credibility, R.I.P.

By Eric Boehlert
Created Jan 9 2007 - 8:58am

It's time for warbloggers to find a new conspiracy theory to promote because
their most recent one, which involved accusing the Associated Press of
manufacturing a source in Iraq and colluding with the insurgents, blew up in
their faces. But don't look for detailed corrections, let alone heartfelt
apologies. Being a warblogger means not having to say you're sorry.

I've written extensively [0] about this controversy because I think it
perfectly captures the right-wing warbloggers and their never-ending goal to
undermine the press. Not with thoughtful, factual analysis -- which is
always welcome -- but by feverishly trying to undercut news reports that
might pose a problem for President Bush's war in Iraq and by shifting
attention onto the media. They want to simultaneously create confusion about
facts, while undermining news consumers' confidence in the mainstream news
media.

Indeed, warbloggers want to have it both ways. They want to bee seen as
tenacious press critics, thoroughly scrutinizing the media's work and doing
democracy a favor. But in reality they can't control their naked disdain for
progressives, not to mention their consuming hatred of the "liberal media."
It's a combination that routinely prompts them to launch dim-witted crusades
built around flimsy, what-if conspiracy theories. (Glenn Greenwald [0]
assembled a Greatest Hits list here; the Terri Schiavo talking points memo
hoax [0] represents a particularly telling chapter in warblogger foolery.)

I'm not necessarily surprised by the outcome of the AP controversy. In
December I noted, "Warbloggers, who have been wrong about Iraq for going on
50 straight months, are looking for a scapegoat. I don't think the AP is
their answer."

Their press offensive began over Thanksgiving weekend when an AP dispatch
[0], quoting Iraqi police Capt. Jamil Hussein, reported that Shiite
militiamen had "grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services,
doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did
not intervene." Warbloggers were skeptical of the chilling report, and
actually raised some legitimate journalism questions, in part because no
other news organizations could confirm the horrific event. The U.S. Central
Command's communications machine, relying on the information from Iraq's
Ministry of Interior, then issued a statement [0] that it could not
corroborate the Burned Alive story, followed by another statement [0] that
Hussein was not a Baghdad police captain.

That's when the warbloggers became unhinged. Piling on, they claimed the
disputed story raised doubts about all the mainstream media's reporting in
Iraq. Warbloggers also accused American journalists of being too cowardly to
go get the news Iraq themselves and relying on local Iraqi news stringers
with obvious terrorist sympathies and who purposefully push insurgent
propaganda into the news stream -- the way Hussein did with the Burned Alive
story -- to create the illusion of turmoil.

Despite the volcanic violence unfolding inside Iraq recently, the pursuit of
the Hussein story produced giddy times for warbloggers. They named the
scandal "Jamilgate" and created a special "Free Jamil Hussein [0]" logo for
bumper stickers. Somebody even produced a phony Jamil Hussein blog, while
fake Jamil Hussein emails (aka "JMail [0]") were posted online amidst much
chuckling and backslapping.

At the height of the self-congratulatory frenzy, Michelle Malkin, who wrote
incessantly about the Hussein "scandal," triumphantly announced warbloggers
had caught the AP faking a source. The verdict for the mainstream media? As
delivered by Malkin it was simple: "MSM credibility, R.I.P. [0]"

But turnabout is fair play, and suddenly it's Malkin's already-thin
credibility that has expired. Thursday afternoon the AP reported [0] that
the Iraqi government had flip-flopped and confirmed the disputed officer's
existence. The Ministry of Interior confirmed the source's name was Jamil
Hussein, that he was a captain, that he was assigned to the Khadra police
station, and that he had talked with AP reporters, which is precisely what
the AP had insisted for months.

I must concede the discipline warbloggers have shown in maintaining their
denial in the wake of the crumbling Hussein story is impressive. For
instance, last month Power Line, busy hyping the "fake" Hussein story, wrote
[0] , "Of course, if Jamil Hussein turns up and [journalists] interview him
in his office in a Baghdad police station, the AP will be vindicated." Well,
Hussein not only turned up in Baghdad but his position was confirmed by the
Ministry of Interior -- the same source warbloggers had used to deny
Hussein's existence. So the AP was "vindicated," right? Not by Power Line,
which for 96 hours stoically ignored the inconvenient development.

The same's true of Flopping Aces, the warblog at the center of the Hussein
conspiracy story. In a rare moment of reflection last month, Curt, who was
supposed to travel with Malkin [0] to Baghdad in search of the "mysterious"
Hussein, wondered [0] out loud what would happen if the source was found.
Imagining himself locating Hussein on a Baghdad street, Curt pondered the
scenario "[w]hen we say that we would like him to come with us to the
Ministry of Interior and have the MoI verify he is indeed a employee [sic]."

For Curt, having the Ministry of Interior verify Hussein's position would be
the best way to end the controversy. Of course, last week the Ministry of
Interior did verify Hussein's position -- but Curt refused to admit his
pursuit had been pointless.

More? At the height of Hussein frenzy, warblogger Rick Moran at Rightwing
Nuthouse wrote [0], "If it can be shown that Jamil Hussein is a fake or
doesn't exist, where does that leave AP's coverage of the war over the last
three years?" Note the emphasis Moran put on proving that Hussein "is a
fake" and "doesn't exist." Yet now that we know the truth, warbloggers like
Moran insist proving whether Hussein was "a fake" was never all that
important. And of course, the inverse of Moran's statement now boomerangs
back on the warbloggers; if it can be shown that Jamil Hussein is not a
fake, where does that leave warbloggers and their coverage over the last
seven weeks?

I don't want to spend too much time debunking the conspiracy point-by-point,
in part because warbloggers have chased the Hussein rabbit so far down the
hole they've burrowed beyond Alice's Wonderland and popped out in another
dimension. They truly have proven the truism that it's not possible to argue
rationally with conspiracy theorists because logic rarely deters them.

For instance, despite insisting just days earlier that Hussein was "fake
[0]," Curt at Flopping Aces wrote [0] of the confirmation that Hussein
exists: "Actually it makes it better." This from the same warblogger who
previously lectured the AP, complaining [0] that it "refuses to acknowledge
that they screwed up, and screwed up royally."

Warbloggers: Jamil Hussein does not exist

It's important to understand that the entire premise of the warbloggers'
press conspiracy [0] revolved around the fact that Hussein did not exist.
That's the angle that drove the story and drove their excitement. Period.
Warbloggers were going to make national headlines by proving the AP had
manufactured a "bogus" source in Iraq. I realize warbloggers now deny that
point and argue they never pushed the angle that Hussein was a fake.
Unfortunately for warbloggers, they're bloggers, which means they typed up
all their dark press assertions and gleefully posted them on the Internet
where people can easily go back and see what they wrote:

a.. Curt at Flopping Aces described [0] the police captain as "the fraud
we know as Jamil Hussein."
b.. Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs mocked [0] the AP and "their
nonexistent news sources."
c.. SeeDubya at JunkYardBlog categorically announced [0] "There is no
Captain Jamil Hussein," stressed [0] "he doesn't really exist," that he's
"non-existent [0]," and suggested the AP source might actually be [0] "Ayman
Al-Zawahiri calling up the AP to give his version of events."
d.. Armed Liberal at Winds of Change declared [0], "We don't believe
[Hussein] exists."
e.. Michelle Malkin mocked [0] the AP's "bogus source Capt. Jamil
Hussein."
Since Hussein is not fake, that means warbloggers are right back where they
started, obsessing about a single AP dispatch filed Nov. 24, and claiming
that one story somehow taints all the AP's reporting from Iraq. When I wrote
a column [0] pointing out the absurdity of that warblogger claim, arguing
that they were extrapolating all kinds of dark inferences from a single news
report about six deaths at a time when thousands of Iraqis were being killed
each month (i.e. "Michelle Malkin fiddles while Baghdad burns"), warbloggers
reacted with anger. They insisted I was missing the point, which was that
the AP had manufactured a "fake" source in Jamil Hussein, and if the AP did
that for one article, who knows how many other stories the AP faked.
Meaning: Hussein was the tip of an enormous press scandal iceberg.

But now Iraq's own Ministry of Interior has confirmed Hussein's title,
warbloggers are racing in reverse, insisting Hussein's existence was never
the issue. (It "changes very little," SeeDubya assured [0] his readers.) The
disputed facts from the Nov. 24 dispatch, that's

what warbloggers really wanted to nail down. Which, if you're following this
loop, means that warbloggers just spent the last seven weeks and untold
man-hours compiling a laundry list of vicious smears against the AP because
warbloggers took issue with part of a single article the AP posted about
Iraq. One article out of more than 10,000 articles the AP has posted about
Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

To date, the warbloggers' admissions of errors have been grudging [0] and
brief, despite the fact they wrote enthusiastically and freely while lodging
their nasty allegations. I'd estimate that over the last seven weeks,
warbloggers have posted at least 40,000 words combined about the alleged
Hussein scandal. By contrast, I'd estimate the combined expressions of
regret so far have totaled less than 100 words. For instance, Malkin's
belated mea culpa [0] was posted late on Saturday night, perhaps the
least-read time of the blogger week, and was attached to the bottom of a
900-word item that dealt with an unrelated topic (a different assertion that
she had to correct). Warbloggers badger the press for "transparency," but
they often show little use for it themselves.

Also, in Malkin's correction [0], she claimed she had nothing to be ashamed
of for pushing the phony Hussein saga because she was simply asking
"legitimate questions" about the AP. Actually, what she did was attack the
AP [0] for being part of the "terrorist-sympathizing, anti-Bush press" and
dubbed it [0] "The Associated (with terrorists) Press."

That's legitimate?

Meanwhile, the Hussein charade helped spotlight the perpetually low regard
warbloggers have for the free press, particularly in times of war. Indeed,
for warbloggers, the process of information gathering appears to be a simple
one. Namely, if the U.S. government, or more importantly officials with
CENTCOM, say something is so (i.e. Jamil Hussein does not exist), than that
ends the discussion. Over and over again warbloggers announced they trust
government officials more than they do journalists.

"I'm still willing to take the word of an officer in the US Military over
others," announced [0] warblogger Anchoress. (Keep in mind that the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group recently concluded that for years, the U.S.
military wildly underreported violence [0] inside Iraq.) In reality that
means you don't really need a press corps, because if wartime information is
coming straight from the top, what's the point of filtering it through the
press? More importantly, it means if journalists report something that
contradicts CENTCOM, that simply proves reporters are dishonest and aiding
the enemy.

And believe me, during the Hussein jihad warbloggers were quite vocal in
claiming the AP was aiding Iraqi insurgents; was doing their bidding.
"[M]any in the American media ... have a vested interest in exaggerating the
violence [in Iraq] as much as possible," claimed Malkin [0]. Little Green
Footballs bemoaned [0] "the Associated Press's right to lie to its customers
and spread enemy propaganda" and insisted the global news outlet had been
"hijacked by propagandists for terror gangs." Rick Moran declared [0] that
nobody needed "posted [0] this item in late November:

MORE REPORTS OF BOGUS IRAQ STORIES FROM A.P.: Kind of makes you wonder
about the reporting from Iraq. Okay, it's more like "confirms your
suspicions" than "makes you wonder," really.

Warblogger Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee [0] was even more sweeping in his
connect-the-dots assumptions:

This presents us with the unsettling possibility that the Associated Press
has no idea how much of the news it has reported out of Iraq since the 2003
invasion is in fact real, and how much they reported was propaganda. The
failure of accountability here is potentially of epic proportions. [Emphasis
added]

In the end, the Jamil Hussein fiasco simply highlights the dramatic fall
from grace warbloggers have suffered over the last 24 months. Following
Memogate [0] in late 2004, when warbloggers helped drive CBS's Dan Rather
off the air for botching a report on Bush and his days with the Texas Air
National Guard, warbloggers, basking in the glow of mainstream media
acclaim, had a real chance to grow the right-wing blogosphere into something
influential and politically important. Instead, today it's an outpost of
misplaced arrogance. Turns out warbloggers are one-hit wonders, the Stealers
Wheel of cyberspace. ("Stuck in the Middle with You [0]," 1973.) As Jane
Hamsher [0] recently noted, warbloggers don't get their facts right, they
don't fundraise, and they don't organize. By contrast, liberal bloggers just
pitched in and helped orchestrate the Democratic takeover of Congress.
Warbloggers? They incessantly Google AP articles from Iraq in search of
questionable sourcing in hopes of proving their Holy Grail theory that
journalists -- "traitors [0]" -- are conspiring with Iraqi insurgents to
throw the war.
_______

About author A senior fellow at Media Matters for America, and a former
senior writer for Salon, Boehlert's first book, "Lapdogs: How The Press
Rolled Over for Bush," was published in May. He can be reached at
eboehlert@aol.com [1]

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson