Bhutto Assassination Weapon ID'd?

On December 27, Pakistani police recovered a pistol from the scene of Benazir Bhutto's assassination in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

I tweaked the low-res version in PhotoShop, rotated it 90 degrees, and played with the color balance to provide better contrast. Here is the modified, rotated photo, inset into the original.

I emailed that "green" photo this morning to Confederate Yankee commenter "karlJ," who has worked in the region as a contract medic, who thinks it could be a Steyr M 9mm pistol.

Based upon the shape and angle of the grip and the angled rear of the slide (which makes it distinct from similar polymer-framed Glock, Springfield XD and M&P pistols), I think that "karlJ" is probably correct.

Barack Obama has yet to link the pistol to Hillary Clinton's vote on the Iraq War.

Update:

Photo editor William G.S. Smith, seems to think that the ID of the assassination weapon as a Steyr M is positive, and sends along this comparison.

01/02 Update: Hey, Nuts. The truthers at whatreallyhappened.com have linked to this post to float the theory that the shooter was Pakistani special forces:

Now guess who uses the Steyr M 9X19mm handgun exclusively - the Pakistani army - special forces division.

An interesting theory... and completely divorced from reality.

I can find zero evidence that the Steyr M has been purchased by any branch of the Pakistani military in an online search... not so much as a single pistol. Pakistani police units bought a limited number of the old Steyr GB pistol in years past, but there is no confusing the two handguns, and the folks at whatreallyhappened.com apparently just decided just to make up a story about the M being "exclusive" Pakistani Army SF issue to float a witless conspiracy theory... shocking, I know.

Jay R. Grodner, A Chicago Lawyer You Should Know

Jay R. Grodner is a Chicago lawyer who apparently believes it is perfectly acceptable to vandalize a deploying Marine's car because of his own anti-war political beliefs.

Of course, the best way to handle the situation is by letting the authorities do their jobs, and commenter "Mo" at Blackfive has the excellent idea of contacting the Illinois Attorney Registration & Disciplinary Commission:

One Prudential Plaza
130 East Randolph Drive
Suite 1500
Chicago, IL 60601-6219
(312) 565-2600 or, within
Illinois, (800) 826-8625
Fax (312) 565-2320

One North Old Capitol Plaza
Suite 333
Springfield, IL 62701-1625
(217) 522-6838 or, within
Illinois, (800) 252-8048
Fax (217) 522-2417

It would seem that committing felony vandalism is a decent reason to have his license to practice law revoked.

The post also cites a police report that Grodner also apparently tried to state that the Marine only accosted him because he's Jewish (implying the Marine is a bigot).

Stay classy, Jay R. Grodner, Chicago attorney.

Bonus: He's already a big hit on Google.

I hope he enjoys the free advertising. He's earned it.

Fred Thompson's Message to Iowa Voters

It's the best I've seen of him since Roger L. Simon and I interviewed him back in November for Pajamas Media.

Thompson offers something different for conservative voters both Democrat and Republican, and than any other contender running this election cycle from either party, in a commitment to the principles that made this nation great.

Are sound, calmly-stated and time-tested principles of leadership enough in a sound-bite focused, poll-driven world? For the sake of our nation's future, I certainly hope so.

Blogger endorsements aren't worth much, but for whatever it is worth, Fred Thompson has earned mine.

Impact?

Channel 4 has new video of the Benazir Bhutto assassination that seems to indicate that the former Prime Minister was indeed hit by the assassin's bullet before she fell back into the car (click Watch this report).

The video, shot from behind Bhutto's vehicle and to the right, shows Bhutto's hair and shawl rise as the pistol discharges for the second time. She drops into the vehicle prior to the suicide bomber detonating. There is nothing in this video to indicate that the first and third shots had any effect.

While the new film shows her hair and shawl moving, however, it is not conclusive.

Unlike the Zapruder-filmed assassination (YouTube) of John F. Kennedy, however, there is not the spray of flesh and bone one might have expected from a pistol blast at near contact range of approximately six feet.

The ballistics expert interviewed by Channel 4, Roger Gray, notes the concussive blast of the bullet hitting her hair and shawl and suggests that it indicates a bullet strike on the left side of Bhutto's head. There were not, however, any direct signs of an invasive impact to Bhutto's skull as seen with Kennedy, just the movement of her hair and shawl. One might think that a bullet hitting Bhutto on the left side of the skull, penetrating, and exiting the right side of her skull would have shown signs of exiting in the form of a spray of blood and bone, which was not evident in the film footage.

So while it is probable that Bhutto was struck by a bullet, it is not conclusive, and the government account of her hitting her head cannot be conclusively ruled out.

Channel 4 was slightly deceptive in their account when they show a sunroof latch from her vehicle and state that there was no sign of blood, implying that the Pakistani government was lying. The government may very well be lying, but the latch they show does not support this; there were two on each side, and Channel 4 is clearly showing the right front latch, while it is the right rear latch that has blood on it and that Bhutto is said to have hit her head on.

It appears everyone is trying to spin the story of Bhutto's assassination for their own advantage, including the media.

Update: Image added.

It is worth noting that if a bullet struck Bhutto a glancing blow and ricocheted away without fully penetrating her skull, that it could possibly leave a wound that would not necessarily look like that of a typical gunshot wound, and instead look something like a blunt force trauma.

If this is the case—and without an autopsy, there are no definitive answers—then the Pakistani government, seeing blood on the rear latch and not seeing evidence of a clear bullet hole, may have incorrectly surmised the cause of death as an impact with the rear sunroof latch as she went down. This is incompetence, but not necessarily a conspiracy to deprive Bhutto of her martyrdom.

In any event, it does not excuse Channel 4 from showing the front sunroof latch and insinuating that there was no blood on any latch, when they clearly took a closeup of the front right latch for their closely-cropped still photo, still in the exact position as shown in the photo above.

Update: AllahPundit's analysis here.

Harper's Credibility Issues Return

Over at Powerline yesterday, John Hinderaker stated that Scott Horton of Harper's libeled the U.S. Army with an anonymous smear on behalf of Iraqi terrorism suspect and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.

It's as incredible an attempt at libel as I've ever seen. No one with any common sense could believe a word of it. That qualification, though, excludes Editor and Publisher, which yesterday republished Horton's libel admiringly, under the headline "Harper's Probes Case of Jailed AP Photog in Iraq. " Some "probe! " Editor and Publisher begins by saying that Horton is "the latest to look at the purported evidence" against Hussein, but that is false. Horton never discusses the evidence, of which he is, as far as his article discloses, entirely ignorant. Beyond that, E & P's crack "staff, " which is credited with its piece, fails to mention that Horton's column is based entirely on an anonymous and highly dubious "source, " and simply quotes Horton's hit-job with evident approval.

Of course, no one expects the left-wing E & P to do any critical thinking, let alone investigation. But it would have taken very little research for them to discover that Scott Horton was, until January, a partner in the law firm that represents Bilal Hussein--a fact that Horton did not find it necessary to disclose to his readers. There is indeed a story here, and one that relates directly to journalism--the kind of thing in which E & P might be expected to take an interest. But political loyalty trumps journalistic standards at E & P.

To sum up: Scott Horton claims to have an anonymous "source" inside the Pentagon, who relayed to him the contents of a DOD briefing on the Hussein case. I think this is plainly false. I believe that Horton has a source, but is it a source inside the Pentagon, or inside Hussein's defense team, headed by Horton's former law partner? If Horton has a "source" inside the Pentagon, who is it? Is this purported source someone with knowledge of the Hussein case, as Horton claims, or is it just another left-winger regurgitating anti-American talking points?

These questions are easily answerable. All Scott Horton has to do is identify his alleged source inside the Pentagon, and give us the details on the "briefing" that his column supposedly summarized. Unless and until this happens, it is reasonable to conclude that Horton, or his source, is lying.

If the name Scott Horton seems familiar to readers of Confederate Yankee, it should; On August 25 of this year, I called him out for a claim he made in a August 24 blog entry he wrote at Harper's called Those Thuggish Neocons, in which he claimed:

I have no idea whether Beauchamp's story was accurate. But at this point I have seen enough of the Neocon corner's war fables to immediately discount anything that emerges from it. One example: back last spring, when I was living in Baghdad, on Haifa Street, I sat in the evening reading a report by one of the core Neocon pack. He was reporting from Baghdad, and recounted a day he had spent out on a patrol with U.S. troops on Haifa Street. He described a peaceful, pleasant, upscale community. Children were out playing on the street. Men and women were out going about their daily business. Well, in fact I had been forced to spend the day "in the submarine," as they say, missing appointments I had in town. Why? This bucolic, marvelous Haifa Street that he described had erupted in gun battles the entire day. In the view of my security guards, with which I readily concurred, it was too unsafe. And yes, I could hear the gunfire and watch some of the exchanges from my position. No American patrol had passed by and there were certainly no children playing in the street. This was the point when I realized that many of these accounts were pure fabrications.

I challenged Horton to produce the "Neocon's" article he claimed to have read in a August 24 email, stating:

can't claim that Harper's is one of my normal stops, but I was very intrigued by your post today "Those Thuggish Neocons, " particularly the paragraph about the reporter who fabricated the Haifa Street report you read.

If you are familiar with my small blog at all (and I'm sure you probably aren't); I often run down false or inaccurate media claims, typically hitting the wire service reporting the hardest, though I've also captured fraud and inaccuracies in newspapers and magazines as well. And yes, I'd readily admit that I have a conservative perspective, but that does not make me so biased that I approach the world with ideological blinders, as this post burning a false pro-Iranian War argument should show.

I was hoping that you would provide me with the date of the story you related as specifically as you can recall, along with the news organization and individual reporter you said was making up this report.

This is pretty obviously unethical and possibly illegal, and I want this resolved quickly.

Horton never responded, prompting my subsequent blog entry to next day.

I repeatedly attempted to get a response from Harper's and emailed Harper's Editor Roger D. Hodge and Managing Editor Ellen Rosenbush on August 27, and again sent email to them, Horton, and Vice President of Public Relations Giulia Melucci on August 29, once more pressing for Horton to produce the report and reporter he claimed to have read during his time in Baghdad.

Again, they refused to respond.

I did not pursue Horton's claims further at that point as I was immersed in the Scott Beauchamp story at the time, but with Beauchamp's stories now retracted by The New Republic and Powerline once again poking holes in Horton's credibility, it seems time to return to the issue once more.

Harper's should come clean on Horton's sourcing for both of these stories, and quickly. If they do not, they seem doomed to wander down the same humiliating path as Franklin Foer and The New Republic.

Update: Chris Muir weighs in:

12/30 Update: I sent another email to Harper's editors and PR person yesterday, and it seems Editor Roger Hodge and Managing Editor Ellen Rosenbush will be out of the office on holiday until they return until January 2. Here's the "meat" of it:

I ask you yet again to compel Mr. Horton to produce the specific article he claims to have read. I think it a quite reasonable request to have a magazine produce source material for a disputed claim, especially when that claim is neither an anonymous source nor classified information, but what Horton himself claims to be a public print media report.

I ask that you please complete this very simple request by Friday, January 4th, 2008, which seems a very reasonable amount of time to produce the article in question, even considering the holiday season.

We'll see how they respond.

What Killed Bhutto?

In a nation where conspiracy theories run a freely as water, a new statement by the Pakistani government that PPP leader Benazir Bhutto was felled by sharpnel from a suicide bomber and not from the assassin's bullets is sure to be greeted with skepticism.

It was initially reported that Bhutto, 54, was killed on Thursday after a public rally in Rawalpindi by the bullets of an assassin who blew himself up after firing the shots.

But the surgeon who operated on her, Dr Mussadiq Khan, told the Associated Press on Friday that Bhutto was killed by shrapnel from the blast -- from which at least 28 more people died and at least 100 were wounded. Khan said "no bullet was found in her body."

An account by IBNlive.com provides a murkier accounting:

Mystery shrouds the death of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto. In an explosive revelation, Pakistan's Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz on Friday said that Bhutto did not die of bullet wounds.

Nawaz said that Bhutto died from a head injury. At least seven doctors from the Rawalpindi General Hospital – where the leader was rushed immediately after the attack – say there were no bullet marks on Bhutto's body.

The doctors have submitted a report to the Pakistan government in which they say that no post-mortem was performed on Bhutto's body and they had not received any instructions to perform one.

"The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

Government sources say there will be an investigation to determine why no autopsy was conducted.

These accounts from doctors seem to directly conflict with that of John Moore, a Getty Images photographer at the scene that stated clearly (audio & slideshow) that Bhutto was shot and went down into the armored vehicle before the assassin detonated his suicide bomb.

Transcript:

...suddenly—well, I turned around and heard three shots go off, and saw her go down, um, fall down through the sunroof, down into the car, and just at that moment, I raised my camera and started photographing with the high-speed motor drive and that's how I was able to capture some of the explosion, and the aftermath...

Other witnesses at the scene concur with Moore:

Three to five shots were fired at her, witnesses said. She was hit in the neck and slumped back in the vehicle. Blood poured from her head, and she never regained consciousness. Moments after the shooting, there was a huge explosion to the left of the vehicle.

A pistol was recovered from the site of the assassination by Pakistani police and is assumed to be the assassination weapon, but the likelihood of a person firing with a pistol rapid-fire from an estimated 50 yards while in a crowd, and hitting his target seems remote.

This would seem to bring us back to the irregular patch on Bhutto's head once again:

"The report says she had head injuries – an irregular patch – and the X-ray doesn't show any bullet in the head. So it was probably the shrapnel or any other thing has struck her in her said. That damaged her brain, causing it to ooze and her death. The report categorically ssyas [sic] there's no wound other than that," Nawaz told a Pakistani news channel.

If the multiple eyewitnesses were correct and Bhutto was back down inside the armored vehicle before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives, then there is little possibility that she was killed by shrapnel. There is also little reason to suspect that the seven doctors who examined her in the IBNlive.com article would lie about there being no signs of a bullet wound.

So what killed Benizer Bhutto? What could cause blunt-force trauma severe enough to kill the former Prime Minister, and occur before the bomb detonated, at which point multiple witnesses state she was already back inside the armored vehicle?

While merely speculating, I think that when shots were fired (they missed), her security detail pulled her back inside the vehicle quickly, and she probably hit the back of her head on the sunroof edge as she was pulled in.

That would seem to account for the lack of wounds other than blunt force trauma, though it would be very hard to prove without an autopsy that was never performed.

Update: The U.K. Sun seems to have come to an identical conclusion. CNN has the story as well.

The Best of Liberal Minds

Dave Lindorff has a nearly perfect pedigree as a liberal journalist.

He's a 1975 graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, a two-time Fulbright Scholar, and a contributor to the New York Times, The Nation, Salon.com, and the co-author of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office.

He's also the author of a Dec. 22 op-ed in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel entitled, "Global Warming Will Save America from the Right...Eventually."

This gem of a post was dug up by Allahpundit at Hot Air, and is a masterstroke of what someone might call liberal fascism... if such a thing ever existed.

It begins:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.

I'm all for good news... aren't you?

Look at a map of the US.

Here you go (will open new window).

Centered on Great Britain, you can drag it over to the U.S., and then use the drop-down in the top left to see what would be submerged under X meters of sea level rise. I'm using 14+ meters, as it is the greatest rise the program is set to calculate, and it has the added bonus of giving Mom and Dad near-riverfront property. Put the rise at 14+ meters, and then read the following, which has been helpfully annotated with links to this map not found in the original post, which will show the flooding for each area mentioned.

The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. While the northeast will also see some coastal flooding, its geography is such that that aside from a few projecting sandbars like Long Island and Cape Cod, the land rises fairly quickly to well above sea level. Sure, Boston, New York and Philadelphia will be threatened, but these are geographically confined areas that could lend themselves to protection by Dutch-style dikes. The West Coast too tends to rise rapidly to well above sea level in most places. Only down in Southern California towards the San Diego area is the ground closer to sea level.

Please, take your time and follow the links. Worthy of the kind of writing we associate with the New York Times, The Nation, and Salon.com, Lindorff gets almost everything wrong.

Contrary to his statements, the area traditionally considered the southeast takes relative few hits to population centers. Take in the order they were presented, Texas loses Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Galveston and Port Author, but the rise in sea level would leave Houston a beachfront resort, and Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and indeed, probably 95% of the state untouched. Florida would take big hits as almost every major coastal city slips under the waves, but Orlando and Mickey are safe, as it the majority of the center of the state from Arcadia, north. Louisiana loses about a third to half (not most) of its territory, and despite his bold pronouncements of "half" of Alabama and Mississippi being under water, the 14 meter sea level rise would hardly make a dent outside of coastal areas, except for a finger darting up from a recently-expanded Mobile Bay to just south of Jackson, Alabama.

As for the Carolinas and Georgia, we'd lose Savannah and Charleston and Wilmington, but other than that, we’d lose mostly rural areas already predisposed towards being swamps.

In short, everything he said about the inundation of those hated "red states" he so reviles ranges from horribly inaccurate to outright wrong.

But perhaps more interesting is that his beloved bi-coastal libospheres fare just as poorly.

Lindorff is perhaps correct that Boston, New York and Philadelphia may well be saved by costly "Dutch-style dikes", but I'll keep in mind that they are far more likely to go under themselves... both literally and financially. You must remember that these are the same folks that brought us the "Big Dig" which, by the way, will also flood.

But what about the areas Lindorff didn't mention?

He forgets to mention the huge inland lake that will turn Sacramento into California's Dead Sea. He also forgets to mention what happens to those along the Chesapeake peninsula, or all the coastal cities in Delaware (buh-bye, Wilmington) and the Jersey shore, and... oh well, Newark isn't that great of a loss, is it? At least no greater of a loss than the southern third of Long Island, Bridgeport and New Haven, Connecticut, and all those other annoying little picturesque villages from there up through Maine.

In plain English, we'd all take significant hits, and despite his poorly-researched conclusions, damage to "red" states in his dark fantasy are greatly inflated, and damage to low-lying areas of "blue" states would also be severe.

In true Columbia Journalism School-educated fashion, however, Lindorff is only beginning to show his stupidity.

He continues:

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.

Then there's the matter of the Midwest, which climate experts say is likely to face a permanent condition of unprecedented drought, making the place largely unlivable, and certainly unfarmable. The agribusinesses and conservative farmers that have been growing corn and wheat may be able to stretch out this doomsday scenario by deep well drilling, but west of the Mississippi, the vast Ogallala Aquifer that has allowed for such irrigation is already being tapped out. It will not be replaced.

So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation's vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.

Finally, in the Southwest, already parched and stiflingly hot, the rise in energy costs and the soaring temperatures will put an end to right-wing retirement communities like Phoenix, Tucson and Palm Springs. Already the Salton Sea is fading away and putting Palm Springs on notice that the good times are coming to an end. Another right-wing haven soon to be gone.

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called "red" state region either gone or depopulated.

Oh, he can dream, can't he?

All those annoying "red" states unlivable, unfarmable, and depopulated, with America's breadbasket a vast desert. He seems absolutely giddy at the thought of liberal elitists being left alone and presumably in charge of what remains. Let's let him cherish his malformed conclusions as he savors the vengeance of the earth mother on those nasty rubes who have caused him so much electoral heartache.

There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

There will be much work to be done to help the earth and its residents—human and non-human—survive this man-made catastrophe, and we can't have these future refugee troglodytes, should their personal disasters still fail to make them recognize reality, mucking things up again.

It should be considered acceptable, in this stifling new world, to say, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

Why, you almost need a Sawzall to cut through moral superiority this thick.

Unfortunately, reality will intrude on poor Mr. Lindorff's eliminationist fantasy yet again.

He seems to forget that farming in arid regions is indeed quite possible if the need arises, and so those nasty Midwesterners that keep ruining national elections for him will not, in fact, die of starvation.

Nor are they likely to come crawling eastward to become the neo-slave-class he envisions.

Nor does Lindorff seem to be able to grasp the even more obvious fact that if times do become hard, those farmers and ranchers in the Midwest and Southeast that he so clearly reviles are going to feed themselves and those around them first. Those in the overpopulated elite bastions of liberal metropolitan thought, hidden behind leaky dikes with little farmland of their own, will be those least likely to be fed.

Perhaps as starving natives of south Philadelphia begin stoking a caldron to a boil in hopes of rendering his frail body into a passable gruel, one of them will remember his article, and snarl at him, "Shut up. We told you this would happen."

Bhutto Assassinated

A supporter of Pakistan former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto mourns deaths of his colleagues after a suicide attack in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Thursday, Dec. 27, 2007. Bhutto died Thursday from her injuries sustained in the attack, a party aide said. At least 20 others were killed in the attack.
(AP Photo/B.K.Bangash)

Former Pakistani Prime Minster and Pakistan People's Party leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan today, following a campaign rally at Liaqat Bagh park preceding elections scheduled for January 8.

Members of Bhutto's political party confirmed that Bhutto died in surgery at Rawalpindi General Hospital at 6:16 PM from gunshot wounds to her chest and neck.

At least five shots were fired at Bhutto as she entered her vehicle, and a gunman equipped with a suicide vest blew himself up 50 yards from her vehicle after the shots were fired.

Early reports indicate that at least 20 supporters and police were killed in the blast.

Bhutto led the opposition against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.

Developing news and blog coverage of the assassination is being updated at Pajamas Media.

Update: Rioting is expected across Pakistan as a result of Bhutto's death.

Bhutto had been the target of previous assassination attempts from Islamic extremists, and it would be reasonable to assume that they were behind today's attack as well. Some have been quick to also point a finger at jihadi-friendly elements of the Pakistani intelligence community, which seems a reasonable assumption, but at this time it is simply too early to know.

What is certain is that Bhutto's death will throw Pakistani into turmoil, and President Pervez Musharraf now faces the greatest crisis of his Presidency. The January 8 elections now seem in doubt, and missteps by Musharraf could plunge the nuclear-armed country into a possible civil war.

If Musharraf is able to keep the situation from deteriorating to that point, and Islamists are found to be responsible for Bhutto's assassination, he may finally be forced to face the Taliban and al Qaeda-aligned militants in the border regions that terrorists have used as a staging area and base camp since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, forces he has largely tried to appease or ignore in the past.

Following Bhutto's assassination, it would not be very surprising to see Musharraf finally authorize U.S. forces to make cross border raids into the tribal areas in a push to wipe out known Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds, though this point, it is far too early to tell how the former general and current President will react.

Update: Via Hot Air, it seems al Qaeda is taking responsibility for the attack. This may be Musharraf's best chance to clean out the Taliban and al Qaeda with the support of the Pakistani people. Let's hope his does his nation a favor and does just that.

Huck Goes a-Hunting

A fairly shrewd move, to be sure, as it highlights yet another difference between Huckabee and fellow Republican front-runner Mitt "I've been a lifelong hunter... both times" Romney.

James Oliphant wrote an amusing post on the subject, but part of it made me cringe:

Huckabee's party drew farther and farther away, circling their targets. POP! POP! Another pheasant down, the killer unknown. The journalists shivered and stomped their feet. Checking BlackBerrys is tougher with gloves on. Another hunter explained that pheasant is usually cooked with the buckshot still in the body. "You just spit it out," he said.

The party was still circling, coming back toward us. The reporters edged out to try and make out the scene. Another bird surfaced and it flew, and flew, and flew.

Right toward us.

POP! POP! POP!

We ducked our heads and scattered. "That was too close," a cameraman said. Nobody was wearing orange anything. The hunting expert said the buckshot wouldn't hurt us if it landed on our heads.

Huckabee's party drew closer and he seemed pleased at our discomfort. He produced three slain pheasants. Huckabee said he had shot one of them, but of course, there was no way to know.

It's not buckshot used in pheasant hunting, Mr. Oliphant. If it was, it would most assuredly hurt you should it happen to hit you in the head, and being roughly the size of pistol bullets, buckshot could quite possibly kill you.

More worrisome, however, is the characterization that someone in Huckabee's party shot in the direction of the press, and Huckabee seemed "pleased at our discomfort."

If that is just awkward phrasing that suggested Huckabee drew delight from firing a shotgun in the direction of the press, then perhaps Mr. Oliphant needs to be gently reminded that "words mean things."

If however, Huckabee did draw visible pleasure from someone in his party shooting close enough to the press to cause them to scatter, then his Reverend Gomer Pyle act seems to be just that... an act.

Update: It's official: Huck's entourage almost bagged some journalists:

The former Arkansas governor, who has surprised the rest of GOP field with his front-runner status here, was the first candidate to hold an event the day after Christmas. Flanked by about a dozen reporters, he wore a microphone from CNN as he went shooting, with Dude, his 3-year-old bird dog, and Chip Saltzman, his campaign manager, at his side.

In the first 30 minutes, Huckabee, Saltzman and a friend shot three birds. Their last shot flew over the heads of reporters, one whom cried out: "Oh my God! Oh my God! Don't shoot. This is traumatizing."

Oddly enough, these are the only two media mentions I've found of the near miss, even as they duly reported his crack about Vice President Cheney's hunting mishap in which he shot a fellow hunter while bird hunting.

I wonder if the media would have been so kind to other candidates in a similar situation, but then, I think we already know the answer to that.

Piling in on Huckabee's unsafe hunting trip now may deprive them of the "easy kill" they desire later in the general election.

Hmmm...

I think we've found the poster child for Jonah Goldberg's new book.

If At First You Don't Succeed...

Russia is selling a new air defense system to our friends in Tehran:

The new S-300 air defense system signals growing miitary [sic] cooperation between Moscow and Tehran, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said Wednesday.

"The S-300 air defense system will be delivered to Iran on the basis of a contract signed with Russia in the past," state television quoted Najjar as saying.

Najjar didn't say when or how many of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense systems would be shipped to Iran.

Earlier this year, Russia delivered 29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran under a $700 million contract signed in December 2005.

Russian officials wouldn't comment on the Iranian statement, but the Interfax news agency quoted an unidentified source in the Russian military-industrial complex as saying that a contract for the missiles delivery had been signed several years ago and envisaged the delivery of several dozen S-300 missile systems.

The S-300 is much more powerful and versatile weapon than the Tor-M1 missile systems supplied earlier, which were capable of hitting airborne targets flying at up to 20,000 feet.

The S-300 is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of up to 95 miles and at altitudes of up to 90,000 feet. Russian military officials boast that it excels the U.S.-built Patriot missiles currently being deployed in Israel.

The announcement comes three months after Israeli strike fighters bombed what some claimed was a nuclear weapons assembly plant in another Soviet client state, Syria.

The Aviation Week blog Ares suggests that the Israelis were able to penetrate the Syrian's Russian-made air defense system with non-steathy F15 and F16 strike fighters by using an airborne network attack system. The US-developed system, called "Suter," may have taken over the state-of-the-art Syrian air defense network, rendering it effectively blind.

While the capabilities of both "Suter" and the Russian air defense systems are classified, there is little reason to believe that the S-300 system is any less prone to being taken over by the airborne attack system than the TOR-1 short-range system already in use by both Syria and Iran.

If this is the case, Iran my be spending millions on an anti-aircraft system that may never see the bombers that kill it.

Merry Christmas

¹In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ²(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³And everyone went to his own town to register.

⁴So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. ⁵He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. ⁶While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, ⁷and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:1-7

Thompson Responds to Roger Simon's Hit-Piece in The Politico

With humor: "Just remember...we don't raise our hands when we're told to, and we don't wear any hats, unless they're our own."

Thompson's dig is funny; the response from The Politico thus far is not.

Despite attempts to reach them via both the media and editorial email addresses on their site, The Politico seems to be going the route of The New Republic, and seems intent on trying a strategy of stonewalling. Perhaps they are hoping that the story of Simon's doctored quote will simply go away.

I was hoping that as an ostensibly "new media" organization they would address controversy with transparency, but that does not seem to be the case.

Old habits apparently die hard.

Update: Now on Youtube.

Mr. Rogers Runs For President

I'm glad to see Mike Huckabee is focusing on the pressing issues.

"It's a tragedy when a sixteen year old who is not really prepared for all the responsibilities of adult life is gonna now be faced with responsibilities of honest to goodness adult life," said Iowa GOP frontrunner, former Arkansas Governor and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee.

He was talking about Britney Spears' younger pregnant sister Jamie Lynn.

"I respect that apparently she's going have the child," Huckabee continued, per ABC News' Kevin Chupka. "I think that's the right decision, a good decision and I respect that and appreciate that. I hope its not an encouragement to other 16 year olds to think that that's the best course of action."

I only wish he were as interested in foreign policy...

Roger Simon's Hit-Job On Fred Thompson At The Politico

I thought I'd said all I was going to say about Roger Simon's article in The Politico yesterday afternoon in the comments at Hot Air, but as more comes out about the article, I think it is worthy of a dedicated post.

Simon (not the Roger L.Simon of Pajamas Media with whom I interviewed Fred Thompson in November) put up a post called Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged (bad link earlier, now fixed -ed).

The article was damning—brutal, even—and highlighted what appeared to be a huge gaffe in his bus tour through Waverly, Iowa:

...Thompson rode four blocks to the local fire station. Local fire stations always have captive audiences (unless there is a fire).

Inside, Thompson shook a few hands — there were only about 15 people there — and then Chief Dan McKenzie handed Thompson the chief's fire hat so Thompson could put it on.

Thompson looked at it with a sour expression on his face.

"I've got a silly hat rule," Thompson said.

In point of fact, the "silly" hat was the one Chief McKenzie wore to fires and I am guessing none of the firefighters in attendance considered it particularly silly, but Thompson was not going to put it on. He just stood there holding it and staring at it.

To save the moment, Jeri Thompson took the hat from her husband’s hands and put it on her head.

"You look cute," Thompson said to her. She did.

Within the context of the rest of the article, Simon's snide editorial reference to the firemen being a "captive audience" would almost go unnoticed.

His description of what happened next, however, used an unambiguously doctored quote. We know this because the events were captured in a video shown at CBS News (click image to watch):

Simon quoted Thompson as stating that "I've got a silly hat rule."

As the CBS video clearly showed, that was only part of Thompson's statement.

What Thompson actually said was, "I've got a silly hat rule that I'm about to violate."

Thompson then takes the Chief's helmet and starts to raise it if he is going to put it on, and then says, while laughing, "I ain't gonna do it... I ain't gonna do it."

At this point Jeri Thompson steps in and Fred puts the helmet on her. Throughout the video, you can hear those assembled laughing, including Chief Dan McKenzie, who handed Thompson the helmet to begin with. McKenzie is shown smiling widely at the end of the clip.

We don't know if the entire Politico article is grossly unfair in the way it characterized Senator Thompson's swing through Waverly, Iowa, but we do know, thanks to the CBS News video, that not only was Simon's editorializing of what occurred in the Waverly Fire Department mischaracterized, but that he doctored a quote to make his article appear all the more damning.

Simon is the Chief Political Columnist for The Politico—one that they tout as one of "Washington's most visible and experienced journalists."— and should know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that doctoring quotes is highly unethical by any journalistic standard.

In their mission statement, The Politico brags about those journalist they would empower:

Today, many of the reporters having the most impact are those whose work carries a unique signature, who add a distinct voice to the public conversation. Their work, in other words, matters more than where they work.

Reporters stand out from the crowd in a number of ways. Some regularly break news before their competitors. Some have a gift for interpretation, for connecting the dots in illuminating ways. Still others stand out through their eloquence and original storytelling.

Politico will promote and celebrate journalists who have a unique signature. That's why we've been able to attract reporters and editors who have worked at such places as Time magazine and The New York Times, National Public Radio, Roll Call and The Hill, Bloomberg News Service, the Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today and The Washington Post.

There is a difference, however, between voice and advocacy. That's one traditional journalism ideal we fully embrace. There is more need than ever for reporting that presents the news fairly, not through an ideological prism. One of the most distressing features of public life recently has been the demise of shared facts. Warring partisans -- many of whom take their news from sources that cater to and amplify their existing opinions -- live in separate zones of reality. In such a climate, every news story is viewed as either weapon or shield in a nonstop ideological war. Our answer to this will be journalism that insists on the primacy of facts over ideology.

Though a doctored quote and a misrepresentation of events captured on camera, Roger Simon seems to have violated that difference between voice and advocacy that The Politico claims to represent.

It remains to be seen if the senior editorial staff of The Politico will take this clear evidence of journalistic malpractice seriously.

Update: I just sent the following to The Politico via their contact form:

Roger Simon's "Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged" included a doctored quote.

Simon states:

"'I've got a silly hat rule,' Thompson said."

That is factually incorrect.

What Thompson said is "I've got a silly hat rule that I'm about to violate."

Simon left off the entire second half of the quote, which was captured, in full, in the CBS News video that captured the event.

You owe it it your readers to correct the record in Simon's story.

I would ask you further what remedy you feel is worthy for a reporter that doctors quotes.

Thank you.

I've also left voicemail for Chief Dan McKenzie at the Waverly, Iowa Fire Department, asking for his view of what occurred yesterday.

I'd be very interested in seeing what both The Politico and Chief McKenzie have to say, and hope they take the time to respond.

Update: Over at A Second Hand Conjecture, Michael W. notes that this is not the first time that Roger Simon of The Politico may have been caught using partial or non-existent quotes.

If this is indeed the case, it seems a resignation, and not a retraction, is in order from Mr. Simon.

At PJM...

Lethal Weapon: Could Romney's Gun Position Kill His Campaign?

When a Presidential candidate doesn't understand the Constitution and Bill of Rights, it's time to look elsewhere (and I'm looking at you, too, Rudy and McCain-Feingold).

Time's Submission of The Year

Time Magazine has declared Russian strongman Vladimir Putin as their 2007 Person of the Year. It should come as little surprise. Time's award has become increasingly irrelevant over the years, and I say that as a past winner who was equally deserving of the award.

Time selected a man that lorded over a Russian security service that apparently murdered a former intelligence officer Alexander Litvinenko in London and refused to extradite his accused murderer, Andrei Lugovoi, which led to the expulsion of four Russian envoys by the British government in protest. That Putin obliquely compared the United States to Nazi Germany earleir this year also probably scored Putin points among Time's editors.

The fact that Putin's critics in the Russian media tend to wind up dead somehow escaped their glowing review—or perhaps inspired it.

17 Russian journalists have been killed since Putin came to power, 14 of which are described as contract murders. None of the 14 murders have ever been solved, including the murders of three journalists—Marina Pisareva, Konstantin Brovko, and Ivan Safronov—in 2007.

Perhaps Time selected their Person of the Year for 2007 not for political or editorial reasons, but for that most basic human desire... survival.

Sad But True

The difference between the New York Times defense of Associated Press photographer/terrorist suspect Bilal Hussein and the John Edwards love child scandal in The National Enquirer is that there is little reason to suspect that predisposed biases may play a role in the Enquirer story.

The Times coverage of Hussein's incarceration—which like the eerily similar Associated Press coverage before it, skips over the fact that Hussein attempted to hide his identity after being captured, and tries to make the normal workings of the Iraqi justice system appear biased against Hussein—is hardly objective.

But then, we didn't expect it to be.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me...

On Drudge:

There is nothing presently on National Enquirer web site right now, but even if there was... would it matter?

Even if true—and I don't think that it is—Edwards is something of a non-factor as a candidate polling well behind Clinton's 42% and Obama's 26% in the RCP poll average of Democratic candidates with just 13% of the vote.

This is stupid news, and more than likely non-news... pretty much like the Edwards campaign thus far.

Journalism is Hard

Babak Dehghanpisheh has an article posted in Newsweek today that once again shows just how careless the media is in its Iraq reporting in an article called, "The "Body Contractors.'"

The article itself is interesting, in that it notes that both violence is down and that those killing Iraqis are taking greater care to hide the bodies of those they kill. As a result of the recent trend of hiding bodies, mutahid al juthath—body contractors—charges clients between $300-$500 to hunt down missing relatives whether they are alive, or as the title of the article implies, dead.

The problem with Dehghanpisheh's reporting, however, is that he cites as examples of on-going massacres at least one event that simply never took place.

He writes:

In the past two months, more than half a dozen mass graves have been found in Iraq, at least half of them in Baghdad. At one site discovered in late November, in a yard in Baghdad's Saydiya neighborhood, bodies and their severed heads were buried in two separate holes, according to a source at the Ministry of Interior who isn't authorized to speak on the record. An additional 16 bodies were found buried in a ditch north of Baghdad last Thursday.

The 16 bodies "found buried in a ditch north of Baghdad last Thursday" never existed, according to American forces in the area that state:

This appears to false reporting. We currently have no information to confirm this. Neither the Brigade on the ground, or out teams that work with the IA or IPs can confirm this.

It is too much to ask reporters to ask anonymous sources for proof of their claims?

When it comes to reporting the dead in Iraq, apparently so.

Dude, It's Gotta Be A Shelf

Get a grip, people.

A large white "cross" hovers like a subliminal message behind Mike Huckabee in his latest TV ad, in which the Republican hopeful celebrates Christmas and mentions Jesus.

The unmistakable cross, possibly intersecting shelf lines or a window pane, appears alongside Huckabee as he comes into focus in the 30-second commercial, which was unveiled yesterday.

The cross, which looks as if it may have been superimposed by the ad-maker, slowly moves to the right on the screen until it's behind Huckabee's head.

"What really matters is the celebration and birth of Christ and being with family and friends," says Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister who has been riding a wave of evangelical support with his open religious appeals.

"I hope you and your family have a magnificent Christmas season. God bless you and Merry Christmas."

The Huckabee campaign had no immediate comment last night on the issue of the cross.

I am decidedly not on the Mike Huckabee bandwagon, but the ad "What really matters" is nothing to write home about, and hardly controversial.

The "cross" is obviously intersecting lines of a shelf—you can see the next row of shelves above Huckabee's head at the end of the ad—and it is just as obviously lit to look precisely what you think it looks like.

What of it? For Christians, Christ—which he mentions in the ad with apparently no backlash whatsoever—is the "reason for the season." Are we supposed to be offended at overt symbolism, but not a direct mention of what that symbol is universally understood to represent?

The ad opens with a stone fireplace behinds Huckabee's head. Perhaps Carl Campanile will now tell us that this simply must indicate Huckabee's association with the Freemasons.

Update: The Patron Saint of Lighter-Than-Air Campaigning checks in.

Shorter Hitchens

Matthew 22:21 (NIV): "...Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

Perhaps it didn't quite have the pedigree (or the venom) Hitchens was looking for, but it does make the general point more succinctly.

You Like Me, You Really Like Me...

John Hawkins has posted the The 6th Annual Right Wing News Conservative Blog Awards as voted upon by 45 of my fellow bloggers, and Confederate Yankee finished 3rd ahead of Newsbusters (4) and Michael J. Totten (4), and behind Michael Yon (2) and Michelle Malkin (1) in the category of "Best Original Reporting By A Blog."

I'm honored to be included in this list and more than a little surprised to find myself in such esteemed company. I'd like to thank my fellow bloggers and blog readers for their support over the course of the year.

I'm humbled.

The Momentous Passing of the Ron Paul Blimp over Northern Raleigh, North Carolina, as Viewed from Research Triangle Park, NC on Friday, December 14, 2007, at 1:00 PM.

Money well spent.

Update: Even better.

Questionable Numbers

A USA Today article earlier this week noted the increasing confirmed or suspected suicides among members of the armed forces, but provided questionable figure for civilian suicides for comparison. The military suicide rate was pushed to USA Today by Senator Patty Murray, (D-WA). Murray was just one of 21 Democrats to vote against the resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

According to the USA Today article:

A record number of soldiers — 109 — have killed themselves this year, according to Army statistics showing confirmed or suspected suicides.

The deaths occur as soldiers serve longer combat deployments and the Army spends $100 million on support programs.

...

Those numbers show 77 confirmed suicides Army-wide this year through Nov. 27 and 32 other deaths pending final determination as suicides.

The Army updated those statistics Wednesday, confirming 85 suicides, including 27 in Iraq and four in Afghanistan.

The highest number of Army suicides recorded since 1990 was 102 in 1992 — a period when the service was 20% larger than today.

A total of 109 suicides this year would equal a rate of 18.4 per 100,000, the highest since the Army started counting in 1980. The civilian suicide rate was 11 per 100,000 in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The discrepancy between military and civilian suicide rates—18.4/100,000 for the military, and 11/100,000 for civilians—is certainly shocking.

But it isn't necessarily accurate in an oranges-to-oranges comparison.

For example, an Associated Press account published today states that the civilian suicide rate for one segment of the population, middle-aged Americans 45-54, has risen dramatically, and that it isn't as far from the military rate as the USA Today article states.

The rate rose by about 20 percent between 1999 and 2004 for U.S. residents ages 45 through 54 — far outpacing increases among younger adults, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

In 2004, there were 16.6 completed suicides per 100,000 people in that age group. That's the highest it's been since the CDC started tracking such rates, around 1980. The previous high was 16.5, in 1982.

Experts said they don't know why the suicide rates are rising so dramatically in that age group, but believe it is an unrecognized tragedy.

The general public and government prevention programs tend to focus on suicide among teenagers, and many suicide researchers concentrate on the elderly, said Mark Kaplan, a suicide researcher at Portland State University.

"The middle-aged are often overlooked. These statistics should serve as a wake-up call," Kaplan said.

For a like comparison to be made, one can—and perhaps should— try to compare the military suicide rate against the most demographically-comparable civilian group, and not the entire U.S. population.

When this is done, the CDC figures show that the 2004 age-adjusted suicide rate for civilian men—which would most closely correlate to the mostly male military population—is at 15.2 per 100,000, just 1.4/100,000 different than the military figure. This isn't an oranges-to-oranges comparison with military deaths, but at least we're closer to talking citrus in both instances.

The highest overall suicide rate among the groups studied was among males 65 or older, at 28.9 per 100,000.

For men, getting old seems to be a far greater risk factor for suicide than going to war, but then, I'm not a statistician.

Another Fake Massacre

This is CNN:

Iraqi soldiers have found a mass grave of mutilated bodies in a restive region north of Baghdad, a local security official told CNN Thursday.

...

Iraqi soldiers said 12 of the bodies found north of Baghdad were beheaded and four others were mutilated. The corpses, all male, were discovered Wednesday near Muqdadiya in Diyala province north of the capital, the official, from Diyala province, said on Thursday.

He said police believe al Qaeda in Iraq left behind the mass grave.

Uh, no.

From Task For Iron's PAO via email:

This appears to false reporting. We currently have no information to confirm this. Neither the Brigade on the ground, or out teams that work with the IA or IPs can confirm this.

This is at least the fifth "massacre of civilians story by al Qaeda" attributed to anonymous police, civilian, or military sources by incurious reporters this year.

Eric Alterman's Alternate Universe

Alterman compares yesterday's circular firing squad of current and former TNR staffers to Rathergate... from a "nuanced" perspective.

The situation is, in many aspects, similar to the CBS Dan Rather mess, as the story has yet to be proven true or false, but remains insufficiently documented.

The community-based reality. Don't leave ours without it.

Open Season

Just when you thought the TNR debacle over "Shock Troops" was over, current and former TNR staffers have begun firing at each other.

In the New York Observer... Bridal blog?

Quoth Elspeth:

"Yeah, it's a bummer, but it's hard to shed any tears over Frank," Elspeth Reeve was telling The Observer in a phone interview Friday, the day before her husband, U.S. Army Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, joined her at her mother’s house in Missouri for his 30-day leave.

And:

Ms. Reeve said she was surprised to learn, in early November while visiting her husband in Germany (where he was transferred upon completing his tour of duty in Iraq), that Mr. Foer planned to retract the stories. She said that she and Mr. Beauchamp had not expected Mr. Foer to take any decisive action until Mr. Beauchamp returned to the U.S. this week, at which point they thought it would be much easier for him to speak up in his own defense.

"I think Scott thought Frank was on his side, you know? And that he understood that he was in a really difficult situation and so would be patient until Scott got out of Iraq," Ms. Reeve said. "I don't think Scott realized the limits on Frank’s patience."

Ms. Reeve also argued that Mr. Foer's retraction, titled "The Fog of War," had failed to prove that any of Mr. Beauchamp’s stories contained fabrications—all it did, she said, was demonstrate that Mr. Foer was tired of dealing with the scandal.

At least one current TNR staffers had other opinions:

According to Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at TNR, the magazine received little cooperation from Mr. Beauchamp throughout the investigation process. "The basis [for the retraction] was just that Scott is maddening," he said. "He's just flaky, he's irresponsible, he doesn't do things that are in his own obvious interest to do. ... Scott was the guy who lives in the group house and is supposed to pay the electric bill and just doesn't, and the lights get shut off. Frank was the guy who had the lights shut out on him."

Hmmm... perhaps they should have figured that out before they published three of his stories?

The most damning comment, however, comes from TNR editor in chief, Martin Peretz—who was notably mute throughout the entire scandal.

"Certainly in retrospect we shouldn't have published them," he told The Observer Monday. "They did not meet the highest standards of proof."

I would have expected Peretz to provide more backing for embattled editor Franklin Foer. Interesting...

Update: And more today, including a previously unmentioned conversation between Peter Scoblic, Elspeth Reeve, and Scott Beauchamp.

Why didn't Frank mention that conversation in his 14-page opus, and why won't Scoblic discuss it now?

Thank You for Your Prompt Press Release

Now that the more than two-years-old alleged gang-rape of Jamie Leigh Jones by Kellog Brown and Root contractors has made national headlines, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has stepped forward to offer a statement:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is calling for a formal government investigation into allegations that a young female American contractor was gang-raped in Iraq and then held incommunicado in a large shipping container by her American employer, KBR, then a subsidiary of Halliburton.

"These claims must be taken seriously and the U.S. government must act immediately to investigate Ms. Jones' claims," Sen. Clinton wrote in a letter today to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Attorney General Michael Mukasey.

Where was Hillary's concern for these claims seven months ago?

On May 16, 2007, Jones stated that:

I wrote every senator in the United States to bring awareness to the fact that after approximately two years, I hadn't had one day in court or any movement with my criminal case.

The sad thing about Clinton’s statement?

She may be one of the first Senators, if not the first, to respond to these claims.

At PJM: The Jamie Leigh Jones Rape Case

I have a pair of posts up at Pajamas Media this morning regarding the alleged July, 2005 gang-rape of a young female contractor in Iraq. ABC News blog The Blotter broke the story and it seems to have triggered an investigation in the House Judiciary Committee as a result. Unfortunately, what came off the pages of The Blotter has significant discrepancies with the claims made in the legal documents.

It isn't fabulism, but it is sensationalism.

The second post at Pajamas this morning is the chronology of Jaime Leigh Jones experiences that was once published as "Jamie's Journal" that was pulled down yesterday and delinked in the site navigation as if it ever existed.

I'd emailed Ms. Jones' attorney yesterday morning with questions, and within several hours, the page was down. Those are the facts. I'm not yet sure if there is any cause and effect involved, but I should be able to clear that up with I speak with her attorney, Todd Kelly, later today.

For those of you who might expect me to be trying to debunk the case... don't.

Though there are some inconsistencies with certain aspects of the case and the way it has been reported, absolutely nothing seems to contradict the key claim that she was savagely, brutally raped. Nothing contradicts the fact that she has not be able to find justice for 2 years.

I think she's a brave young woman, and hope that she can find both emotional and physical healing.

AP'S Conflict of Interest

There is one current story in Iraq that has attracted the full attention of the Associated Press, and that is the case of Bilal Hussein, an AP photographer and terrorism suspect. The AP report on Hussein's hearing yesterday leaves out the fact that Hussein was arrested with a known al Qaeda terrorist... one of but many troubling aspects of the news organization's decision to forego objective news reporting in favor of self-serving advocacy in a clear and pervasive conflict of interest.

The Associated Press, as an involved party in this case, should recuse themselves from reporting on Hussein's trial.

According to The Associated Press Statement of News Values and Principles:

In the 21st century, that news is transmitted in more ways than ever before – in print, on the air and on the Web, with words, images, graphics, sounds and video. But always and in all media, we insist on the highest standards of integrity and ethical behavior when we gather and deliver the news.

That means we abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions. It means we will not knowingly introduce false information into material intended for publication or broadcast; nor will we alter photo or image content. Quotations must be accurate, and precise.

It means we always strive to identify all the sources of our information, shielding them with anonymity only when they insist upon it and when they provide vital information – not opinion or speculation; when there is no other way to obtain that information; and when we know the source is knowledgeable and reliable.

It means we don't plagiarize.

It means we avoid behavior or activities that create a conflict of interest and compromise our ability to report the news fairly and accurately, uninfluenced by any person or action.

It means we don't misidentify or misrepresent ourselves to get a story. When we seek an interview, we identify ourselves as AP journalists.

It means we don’t pay newsmakers for interviews, to take their photographs or to film or record them.

It means we must be fair. Whenever we portray someone in a negative light, we must make a real effort to obtain a response from that person. When mistakes are made, they must be corrected – fully, quickly and ungrudgingly.

And ultimately, it means it is the responsibility of every one of us to ensure that these standards are upheld. Any time a question is raised about any aspect of our work, it should be taken seriously.

AP editor Kim Gamel cannot claim to be avoiding bias and a conflict of interest when interviewing AP spokesman Paul Colford about the trial of AP employee Bilal Hussein.

In what alternate universe is it acceptable for a journalist to interview a senior staffer in the same news organization about a fellow employee?

Gamel cannot claim to be objective and retain the ability to "report the news fairly and accurately, uninfluenced by any person or action" when Gamel is reporting upon the Associated Press.

Whether or not Bilal Hussein is guilty of terrorism-related charges is a matter for the Iraqi criminal justice system to decide.

That the Associated Press is in violation of their own stated values and principles is readily apparent.

Just don't expect them to admit it.

Smith Resigns...

...as a freelancer at NRO:

Dear Readers,

After much reflection and consideration, I am withdrawing from my professional relationship as a regular freelancer with National Review Online.

This is my own decision. No one at NRO has asked me to do this, nor has anyone suggested or even hinted I should. But I believe this to be in the best interest of the publication which I have so much respect for.

Both NRO and I have taken far too much heat for something which would never have happened had I been more specific in terms of detailing my sourcing while blogging about Lebanon at "The Tank". That is a responsibility I have to accept.

It was an honor to write for NRO. NRO has stood by me and supported me throughout all of this, and for that — and for so many other things over the years — I will always be grateful. And I will always cherish my relationship with NRO.

As I said in an interview the other day, I'm not sure what the future holds for me in this. But what I do know is that I will continue to march forward into it.

All the best,
W. Thomas Smith Jr.

Franklin Foer, you are on the clock.

Update: Katharyn Jean Lopez provides a full accounting of what went wrong with Smith's reporting from Lebanon at NRO blog "The Tank."

When Dinosaurs Attack

Dan Riehl points to this gem from a Huffington Post interview with Helen Thomas:

HP:Do you think technology is changing [journalism]? That a good reporter will always find a venue because there are so many media outlets now?

Thomas: No, but I do think it is kind of sad when everybody who owns a laptop thinks they're a journalist and doesn't understand the ethics. We do have to have some sense of what's right and wrong in this job. Of how far we can go. We don't make accusations without absolute proof. We're not prosecutors. We don't assume.

HP: So if there's this amateur league of journalists out there, trying to do what you do...

Thomas: It's dangerous.

To a certain extent, I agree with Thomas that blogging is dangerous... for journalists. The gatekeeper isn't dead, but he is ailing.

Blogging software now makes it easy for subject matter experts and enthusiasts to provide the insights and critical review that most journalists simply don't have the background to report thoroughly, or accurately.

I'd hasten to add that this isn't always the fault of journalists. Many if not most journalists are generalists, who may be assigned to whatever the "hot" story of the day may be, across a wide range of topics. We've less tolerance for the siloed journalists who cover a specific beat and refuse to become subject matter experts in the area that they are assigned.

But no matter where journalists come from, must are always still primarily journalists, with a communications/journalism background, and they simply cannot compile the depth or breadth of knowledge that someone who has the academic and practical professional experience that many bloggers have developed.

It is for these reasons that science blogs, milblogs, tech blogs and law blogs almost always have better commentary than the journalists merely assigned to cover the same areas, even though these bloggers will rarely break as many new news stories. Where bloggers typically excel is with providing content and corrections to news stories that journalist simply don't have the expertise to give.

Now, it is a fair criticism that with tens of millions of blogs that many, if not most of them, are junk. It is a fair assessment that most blogs merely exist to echo opinions, but provide very little in the way of news in their content. But it is equally true that in blogging the cream rises to the top. What we increasing find in journalism, however, is that what floats to the top assuredly isn't cream.

Bloggers have removed the mystique of the profession of journalism. It isn't rocket science.

It never was.

Though taught on the undergraduate and graduate level, some of the best journalists lack a college degree. Good reporting is craft or a trade reliant on a thirst for knowledge, dilligence, insight, ethics, and an ability to communicate—personality traits that no journalism school in the country can provide. The best a journalism program can do is polish the skills and technique of someone who already has these traits, but specific pedigrees are irrelevant when it comes the long-term quality of the work. A degree from Columbia may get your foot in the newsroom, but it won't keep you there. The quality of your work determines your future... or should.

I can think of a half dozen bloggers covering politics that have done more original reporting than Helen Thomas over the past few years and certainly deserve a seat in the White House Press Corps more than Thomas, who only seem to exist now as an irritant for the White House Press office, and as an amusement for her peers.

In the end perhaps it is her own current irrelevance that makes Thomas regard bloggers as dangerous, as a new breed of information providers devours the old.

Democrats Determined to Miss the Good News from Iraq

My newest post is up at Pajamas Media.

Surviving the Mall

You should never have to shop in fear, but yesterday's senseless murders at an Omaha, Nebraska mall remind us that violence can happen almost anywhere. Because it can, it isn't a bad idea to have an exit strategy in the back of your mind.

In the very unlikely event that you find yourself in a situation like that in Nebraska yesterday or previous shootings this year in malls in Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Douglasville, Georgia, there are simple actions you can take to increase your changes of getting out unharmed.

Get in.
The long, wide corridors and hallways lined with stores in a mall provide us with easy access from one store to another. In situations where a shooter is on the loose, they are also going to be the first route of escape for shoppers. The panicked rush of people attempting to use these corridors to escape increases the risk of being trampled in a mob. It goes without saying that these long open hallways provide next to no cover from any bullets fired.

If you happen to be walking in the mall and a shooting occurs, get into the nearest store or side hallway.

Get low.
Firearms, be they handguns, rifles, or shotguns, are typically fired from the shoulder. Most bullets or pellets travel roughly on a horizontal plane from shoulder to waist high. By going prone, you decrease your chances of getting hit. Once down, stay down. Bullets have no problem penetrating multiple layers of building materials. Just because you do not see the shooter does not mean you are out of danger.

Get out.
Stores do not bring their merchandise in through the front door. Almost all have loading docks, and to comply with fire codes, an emergency exit that leads either to a back hallway, or provide directs access to the outside of the building. Look up for the "exit" sign on the ceiling at the back of the store, and make your way there as fast as possible, keeping as low as possible.

Keep moving.
Once you make it outside, keep moving. Put as much physical space and as many physical objects between you and the scene as possible.

Putting it all together.

• Get in.
• Get low.
• Get out.
• Keep moving.

File that bit of information in the back of your mind. I'll pray you never have occasion to use it.

Nine Dead in Nebraska Mall Shooting

May God be with the families of the killed and wounded.

There really isn't a whole lot more to be said at this point, but I'd like to offer some clarification of media statements if that will help people process the story.

ABC News cites police as saying an SKS rifle was used in the shooting. The SKS is not an assault rifle, despite it being called that erroneously by some news outlets. One account attributed to ABC News claims that the shooter used a weapon with two magazines. This would throw the initial identification of the weapon as an SKS into doubt, as the overwhelming majority of SKS rifles use 10-round magazines permanently affixed to the weapon, though some variants do have the capability to use detachable magazines. If the rifle did use detachable magazines, the likelihood is greater that it was an AK-pattern rifle.

Both firearms are chambered for the 7.62x39 cartridge, typically firing an intermediate-power 123-grain .30-caliber bullet.

I'd caution readers not to make too much of accounts of a grenade being recovered from the parking lot of the same mall last week. The pineapple-style grenade casing was phased out decades ago, and the item recovered is more than likely just a novelty.

IowaHawk: Foer's Rough Draft

Did we have a Jayson Blair on our hands--or, closer to home, another Stephen Glass, the fabulist who did so much to tarnish this magazine's reputation ten years ago? Or perhaps another Ruth Shalit, whose plagiarism at this magazine did somewhat less tarnishing 2 years earlier? Or could he be another Lee Siegel, whose 2007 sock puppeting at this magazine resulted another tarnishing, albeit only around 40 on the Glass Tarnish Quotient? One fact was clear: painful experience has taught us at The New Republic to be on the lookout for tarnishings...

Heh. Read the whole thing.

Killing Themselves Softly

"Re-reporting" for The New Republic doesn't apparently consist of going back to talk with experts they've interviewed to discuss discrepancies in their claims.

On August 9, I published When Hidden Experts are Found, an interview with Doug Coffey, the Head of Communications, Land & Armaments, for BAE Systems. He is the corporate spokesmen TNR cited—anonymously— on August 2 (my bold):

The last section of the Diarist described soldiers using Bradley Fighting Vehicles to kill dogs. On this topic, one soldier who witnessed the incident described by Beauchamp, wrote in an e-mail: "How you do this (I've seen it done more than once) is, when you approach the dog in question, suddenly lurch the Bradley on the opposite side of the road the dog is on. The rear-end of the vehicle will then swing TOWARD the animal, scaring it into running out into the road. If it works, the dog is running into the center of the road as the driver swings his yoke back around the other way, and the dog becomes a chalk outline." TNR contacted the manufacturer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System, where a spokesman confirmed that the vehicle is as maneuverable as Beauchamp described.

As TNR did not publish his name—or for that matter, any other experts they claim support the allegations made in "Shock Troops"—I stumbled across Coffey purely by accident.

It quickly became apparent that TNR did not ask him to actually review the specific claims made about Bradley capabilities in "Shock Troops," and once he reviewed the exact passages, he didn't seem very convinced:

I can't pretend to know what may or may not have happened in Iraq but the impression the writer leaves is that a "driver" can go on joy rides with a 35 ton vehicle at will. The vehicle has a crew and a commander of the vehicle who is in charge. In order for the scenario described to have taken place, there would have to have been collaboration by the entire crew.

The driver's vision, even if sitting in an open hatch is severely restricted along the sides. He sits forward on the left side of the vehicle. His vision is significantly impaired along the right side of the vehicle which makes the account to "suddenly swerve to the right" and actually catch an animal suspect. If you were to attempt the same feat in your car, it would be very difficult and you have the benefit of side mirrors.

Anyone familiar with tracked vehicles knows that turning sharply requires the road wheels on the side of the turn to either stop or reverse as the road wheels on the opposite side accelerates. What may not be obvious is that the track once on the ground, doesn't move. The road wheels roll across it but the track itself is stationary until it is pushed forward by the road wheels.

The width of the track makes it highly unlikely that running over a dog would leave two intact parts. One half of the dog would have to be completely crushed.

It also seems suspicious that a driver could go on repeated joy rides or purposefully run into things. Less a risk to the track though that is certainly possible but there is sensitive equipment on the top of the vehicle, antennas, sights, TOW missile launcher, commander and if it was a newer vehicle, the commander's independent viewer, not to mention the main gun. Strange things are known to happen in a combat environment but I can't imagine that the vehicle commander or the unit commander would tolerate repeated misuse of the vehicle, especially any action that could damage its ability to engage.

This interview with Mr. Coffey has been cited once or twice, and seems to cast significant doubt on the quality of "re-reporting" done by the editors of The New Republic.

I would think that in the almost four months since this interview first posted that TNR would seek to reestablish contact with Mr. Coffey to discuss the apparent discrepancies between what they suggest he said, and what he said here, especially as this is often cited as one of the strongest claims against the quality and intent of their investigation.

To date, The New Republic still refuses to release the names of the other experts they said supported the claims made in "Shock Troops."

Slowly, Slowly...

The TNR saga is slowly seeping into the media, with posts this morning at the Washington Post and the New York Times, in addition to last night's mention in the New York Observer.

Not a single one of these outlets discusses the fact that Franklin Foer spent the better part of 13 pages alleging a military conspiracy spanning four bases in three countries involving dozens of soldiers, from privates to colonels.

I guess they didn't want to discuss how nutty that explanation sounds.

Nor did they mention that Foer and The New Republic refused to apologize to those soldiers in Iraq and Kuwait they accused of atrocities.

Not a single one them acknowledges that Foer was being deceptive when he claimed back in July "the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published".

Nor did they mention that both of the author's prior stories made statements--at least one unequivocally false--that should have made them doubt his veracity from the beginning. Even Media Matters ripped The New Republic for their handling of this debacle, perhaps marking the first time in history the organization has ever been to the right of major news outlets.

No. I'm not kidding:

Essentially, what unnerved me is that a magazine like TNR was so completely divorced from the military that they did not even have one person on staff -- one single person -- who was personally connected to a career professional in the military (and Elspeth Reeve, an intern at TNR who is now married to Beauchamp -- himself not a career professional in the military -- doesn't count), who could have a) helped them screen what was being sent in the first place, and b) helped them figure out how to fact-check the guy (let alone, after the fact, help them figure out what was really going on). I mean, seriously, how is it that at this point the best de facto depictions of life in-country come ... in Doonesbury?! (The very liberal cartoonist Gary Trudeau is, in a strange twist of journalism, apparently far better wired in to real soldiers on the ground than is the editor of a major magazine? How did this happen?)

Folks, we are six freaking years into a war now. Regardless of how you or I or Eric or anybody feels about the causality of these wars, the fact of these wars remain important for all of us to understand. We are six years into a period in which the military and issues of war have been, like, you know, sort of central. How could TNR remain so divorced from anyone in the military for so long that they eventually fell for this?

Nor have the professional media sought to address, in any way, that The New Republic hid testimony provided to it by military personnel that contradicted their preferred narrative, and have flatly refused to provide the names of their anonymous civilian experts they interviewed, perhaps because the one that was found shows just how disreputable the magazine truly is.

This story is far from over, folks.

But They're Only The Rabble: Ignore Them

Franklin Foer may be telling the truth when he said "no one at TNR has asked him to" resign. Because smart employees rarely tell their bosses such things, of course.

Commenters to his 14-page non-apology were a bit less restrained:

Posted by Chris Christner 7 of 420 | warn tnr | respond You broke every rule of journalism and in the process slandered our military. At the very least you owe them an apology. If you had a shred of integrity and respect for the reputation of TNR, you'd also submit your resignation. It's obvious that you waited until the last possible moment to retract Beauchamp's stories, only doing so now because the new TNR book on Election 08's just come out. However, regardless of your blame-the-messenger retraction, the Beauchamp affair is still going to hammer your book's credibility along with that of TNR. As it should.

...

Posted by Hey, Pierre Salinger!
25 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Franklin Foer, your petulant whine about the bad ol' Army and the stressed-out Beauchamp are less than believable. You were had because you WANTED to be had. Get over your self-pity and resign, already.

...

Posted by slp
32 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Franklin: It is time to resign.

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Posted by tdneeley
56 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
I always suspected Beauchamp's stories were crap. I've already canceled my subscription, after 13 or 14 years. Anyone involved in this debacle should do the honorable thing and resign. You people have very nearly destroyed a great magazine, one I enjoyed reading back when Foer and company were going to keggers and sleeping through Journalism 101. What a disgrace. Goodbye.

...

Posted by redherkey
60 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Franklin, While your efforts to explain this certainly must have taken considerable energy, it does not address the fundamental issue which allowed this myth to be published: the lack of management controls enforcing organizational policy and adherence to both company and journalistic codes of conduct. As a competent manager would explain, the outcome you experienced is what is expected when organizational controls are ignored. This is the default condition to which management is empowered to correct. We do not have spouses or even parties related through means other than the job conducting reviews, fact-checking, etc. We do not verify anonymous sources with other anonymous ones. In fact, anonymous sources are never primary sources except in shady journalism due to the inherent uncontrolled abuse it facilitates. We maintain higher tests when accusations are more significant. Having attempted to effect an outcome that damages national security and disparages the U.S. Army, a very high standard is required. Instead, TNR's efforts would not suffice at a junior high school newspaper. This is a management failure, not a complex trickery of a confused young man. Given the track record of TNR, this is also an institutional failure. TNR simply does not have controls sufficient to produce credible, objective non-fiction publications and does not appear capable of self-reform. Should you and the editorial staff and senior management of the publication seek to provide TNR with an opportunity to continue, resignation is the only appropriate action. CanWest should either clean house and refocus this damaged brand or terminate it and write it off as a lesson in corporate governance and oversight.

...

Posted by Cody B
68 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
"The Plank The smartest blog on the web. Period." No dude, you were busted by many, many blogs who are much smarter than you and don't have an agenda. You should resign right after you apologize to our brave men and women serving our country.

...

Posted by FOER-THE-LIER
75 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
FOER: Well, it depends on what the word "LIE" means!! Can you imagine how much time this little dweeb has spent the last month trying to write this? How NIXONIAN. Tricky Dick never weaseled around more. Notice how the libs, when caught in their own morass slither around just like Tricky Dick. Foer - just remember when people look at you now - they are thinking - "There goes that guy that swallowed harder and longer than Monica ever did." Like one other poster said, it couldn't happen to a nicer, more arrogant bastardi. RESIGN NOW.

...

Posted by C. Pruett
78 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
To borrow and paraphrase: Let us not assassinate these lads further, Mr. Foer You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? Obfuscatory tripe. Check. Refusal to accept responsibility. Check. Failure to sincerely apologize. Check. Complete lack of integrity. Check. Mr. Foer, an honorable man would resign. Accordingly, I expect you to stay on.

...

Posted by klfoster
81 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Foer suggests that the Army may be guilty of suppressing Beauchamp through intimidation, thereby holding out the slim hope for himself that one day he and Beauchamp will be cleared of all charges. Foer has not offered an apology. He is as misleading in this regard as the meandering Beauchamp story. The owners of The New Republic have a responsibility to their readers, the public and the Army to make management changes at the magazine to restore its credibility.

...

Posted by Gerry Shuller
91 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Is there an ounce of integrity left at TNR? Of course, Foer and other have to go, but more importantly, the next issue of TRN must not only feature an abject apology, but have POSITIVE stories about the American military that is fighting Islamo-fascism in Iraq.

...

Posted by Cato the Elder
99 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Now I see why it took your honest effort so many months to reach a conclusion: it must have taken at least a quarter to come up with and write 14 pages of self-serving garbage. Why is it that a magazine with a history of publishing fakes, lies, forgeries etc. continues to be duped by Q-list fabulists? Do you not learn from your mistakes? Why are the editors of TNR still employed? Take a tip from Howell Raines and go write about your dogs for Field & Stream. This episode shames Franklin Foer, CanWest and a once great magazine. In a better world Mr. Foer would open his stomach immediately after issuing a straightforward correction. Mr. Foer's demonstrated lack of honor precludes his taking that honorable step and Carthage must be destroyed.

...

Posted by Jim C
110 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
You all should be ashamed of yourselves. You slandered our military, lied to your readers about experts that supposedly corroberated Beauchamp's story, and now you have the nerve to pull the "hey, he pulled the wool over our eyes too" card? I hope canwest gets rid of every last one of you. Jim C

...

Posted by fmfnavydoc
122 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
As a member of the military, your apology, Mr. Foer, isn't worth the damn paper it's written on. You and your magazine violated every rule of journalistic and even personal integrity by publishing Scott Thomas Beuachamp's tripe - you have become the latest poster child for "journalistic integrity" - right up there with Dan Rather, CNN and the others that have used the media to spew their vitriol against those that they see as being "inferior" or not holding the same viewpoint. 14 pages to tell the world "we screwed up" - that has to be a record, especially for a journalist. Your actions brought TNR to the level of a gossip mag, or better yet, to a level lower than that seen at a junior high school student paper. Mr. Foer, you need to do the following: 1. Say the following phrase, "I screwed up"... 2. Submit your resignation, effective immediately. 3. Find employment elsewhere - like a fast food restaurant.

...

osted by Thom Walker
153 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Agreed. Resign. Better yet, fold TNR. It's time she died, and newer breaths were heard.Even if - and it's a big IF - 75% of Beauchamp's stories turn out by some miracle to be true... or even 'fact-based'... it doesn't excuse this shoddy attempt at journalism, and it absolutely does not excuse this multi-page non-apology. (I can't remember the last time a public figure even offered a GENUINE apology, vs a "Gosh, I'm sorry if YOU were offended" snake-in-the-grass escape from self-ownership of an issue - and sadly, this article is lower than the average snake's belly.) Thank the great American military - by their amazing self-sacrifice, you're free to publish this tripe anytime you want. Just please, from now on, file it under pulp fiction. Better yet, don't bother.

...

Posted by Richard
159 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
This is absolute garbage. Come clean, Franklin, and then fall on your sword. Confession is good for the soul. Admit you made an egregious set of editing errors and compounded them by initially standing by your story, and then stonewalling for months. And then do the only honorable thing you've done since this started, and resign. Thank you, by the way, for the $6.00 check you sent, refunding the remainder of my subscription.

...

Posted by Takekaze
168 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
When I read those "stories" the first time my reaction was "What the hell?" My brain was screaming "BS alarm!" Let me explain why. I'm not American, but I have served in my country's military for 8 years. I held a rank equivalent to either Staff Sergeant or Master Sergeant (I always mix them up). I was a tankie. When I read about M2 Brads running over dogs as if it was the easiset thing in the world, I was wondering how the hell one would achieve that. Agreed, we don't have Bradleys, but we do have APCs and I seriously doubt that even our best drivers can run over a dog like this (I know my driver can't do it). When I read about "Mandrake's Bride", my only conclusion was: this story is crap. I know that no NCO or officer would allow such behavior in the mess tent. I would bite off my soldiers' heads for something like that. I would make them regret such behavior. As for the pieces of skull on the head. Oh please, such stories come up all the time and they are usually never true. Oldest propaganda. Apart from that, any NCO or officer would stop it right away. In my eight years of service (four active, four in reserves) I had to deal with US troops a few times. They were usually Marines. And, judging from those men and women, I would, without hesitation, put my hand into the fire for their integrity and honor, because I know they would NEVER behave in the ways described in those ridiculous stories. Now, the way I see it, you, the editors, owe the US military and it's men and women an apology. I think you should fly to Iraq, travel from base to base and apologize to every soldier, every marine, every airman, every sailor, every tankie, every grunt, every pilot, every medic, every driver, every NCO, every officer you meet there and then thank them for their hard work in Iraq and A-stan and for protecting your right of slandering them... I mean, your right of free speech, oh those evil typos. You also owe the American public an apology for lying to them.

...

G. Lutz
174 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
To me, the "re-reporting" and quasi retraction of these stories smack of the same mistakes made in the Killian documents debacle. The editors at TNR decided to print the Beauchamp stories with no serious regard to their veracity simply because they fit into their political milieu and it's narrow minded view of the war in Iraq, and the conduct of the American soldiers fighting that war. Further, your report and retraction of the stories, much like the Dan Rather retraction, appears to state that while the articles in question may not be accurate, you still stand by the basic premise of the stories themselves, thus exposing a base partisanship and lack of journalist integrity at TNR. I am disgusted and saddened by the half hearted retraction, and the utter lack of an apology to the men and women of the United States armed forces. TNR just confirmed all the horrible things it is accused of by the "right-wing" blogosphere. When reporting on weighty issues with such far reaching implications one must take extraordinary diligence to ascertain the veracity of any and all claims made. TNR obviously did not do this, as allowing the new wife of the author to fact check the pieces clearly shows. The lack of professionalism with which TNR has conducted itself throughout this lengthy affair is astounding. One can only hope that it leads to some major changes in personnel in your organization.

...

Posted by Roy Mustang
175 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
Mr. Foer has proven that is not trustworthy enough to hold his current position. This 15 page intelluctually dishonest editoral only serves to highlight this fact. If TNR ever wants to regain the public's trust, it needs to start with the removal of Mr. Foer.

...

Posted by JPLodine
227 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
For Chrissake, resign already.

...

Posted by Shyron M. Beavers
238 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
As a veteran your I am infuriated that your obvious lies and pure hate for America and the POTUS, this yellow journalism put our fighting men in harms way and the support troops. Next time just say we lied, I'm sorry, and I resign!

...

Posted by Steve
246 of 420 | warn tnr | respond
What a convoluted way of saying, "We lied to you." Remember when people used to be noble and just resign when they majorly screwed up? How can anyone ever believe another word printed by your magazine? It's time to clean house or close down.

That is just halfway into the comments section, but I got tired of cutting and pasting. There were also quite a few comments from former TNR subscribers—and future former TNR subscribers—in the comments, but I didn't attempt an accounting.

Ultimately, it will be Canwest that does that... via advertiser feedback, of course. In the end, I'll be surprised if Mr. Foer's wild ride won't end up costing Canwest millions.

Another Fabulist

This time, W. Thomas Smith, Jr., a former Marine writing at NRO blog The Tank.

On Friday, Smith admitted that he:

• turned two AK-pattern rifles he witnessed in a tent city into "200-plus heavily armed Hezbollah militiamen," and then;
• turned a tip from an informant and men he saw at intersections with radios into "between 4,000 and 5,000 HezB gunmen deployed to the Christian areas of Beirut in an unsettling 'show of force,' positioning themselves at road intersections and other key points throughout the city."

Shortly after Smith posted his comments, NRO editor Kathryn Jean Lopez posted a comment of her own, stating in part:

Bottom line: NRO strives to bring you reliable analysis and reporting — whether in presenting articles, essays, or blog posts. Smith did commendable work in Lebanon earlier this year, as he does from S.C. where he is based, as he has done from Iraq, where he has been twice. But rereading some of the posts (see "The Tank" for more detail) and after doing a thorough investigation of some of the points made in some of those posts, I've come to the conclusion that NRO should have provided readers with more context and caveats in some posts from Lebanon this fall. And so I apologize to you, our readers.

It is good that Lopez and Smith admitted to these falsehoods without prompting, but I do not think that adding "context and caveats" to Smith's comments would have been enough to justify them.

At the very least, Smith has earned a suspension from NRO, but considering the magnitude of his fabrications, termination seems warranted.

TNR Folds

It took fourteen pages--13 of those geared towards Franklin' Foer's attempt to keep his job--but here's the punchline:

When I last spoke with Beauchamp in early November, he continued to stand by his stories. Unfortunately, the standards of this magazine require more than that. And, in light of the evidence available to us, after months of intensive re-reporting, we cannot be confident that the events in his pieces occurred in exactly the manner that he described them. Without that essential confidence, we cannot stand by these stories.

Stay tuned. I'll have much more later, including why Franklin Foer said nothing to justify keeping his job.

Update: As promised.

Rudy's Accountability Problem

I'm really not liking the way this sounds:

In the fall of 2001, city cops chauffeured Rudy Giuliani's then-mistress, Judith Nathan, to her parents' Pennsylvania home 130 miles away on the taxpayers' dime.

Records show that city cops refueled at an ExxonMobil station down the road from Nathan's childhood home in Hazleton on Oct. 20, 2001, while Giuliani stayed behind in New York attending 9/11 funerals.

A similar receipt pops up at a different Hazleton gas station two months later, when Nathan apparently went home for a pre-Christmas visit with her parents.

The records show that - in addition to using City Hall funds to take Giuliani and Nathan to 11 secret trysts in the Hamptons, as has been previously reported - taxpayers were paying to ferry Nathan on long-distance trips without Giuliani, now a Republican contender for President.

Rudy's flexible interpretation of his marital vows has always been a source of irritation to many conservatives, but if he has indeed used taxpayer funds inappropriately, then he may have trouble on the horizon.

Another Media Account Disputed

Hala Jaber's American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq has been challenged by an American soldier on the ground.

1LT Brendan Griswold, 1-5 CAV in Ameriyah writes:

I do not know how long Ms. Hala Jaber's trip to Ameriya lasted or where exactly she visited inside the city, but the events that she describes in her recent article ("American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq," November 25), totally contradict the progress I have personally witnessed in the past 13 months here in Ameriya.

I have spent the last 13 months as a Platoon Leader in the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, stationed in western Baghdad and responsible for securing the population of Ameriya—a Sunni dominant and once-upscale portion of the Iraqi capital. My time here has allowed me to become close to many of the citizens inside Ameriya who live in my various areas of responsibility. Having been fortunate enough to remain in one area throughout my deployment, the relationships I have formed with many of the local citizens have allowed me to become very aware of what exactly they have been through, as well as the opportunity to celebrate with them—literally—the peace that has returned to this once violent area.

When 1-5 CAV first arrived in Ameriya in 2006, innocent Iraqis lying dead on the street were a daily reminder of the sectarian violence that was engulfing Baghdad. Attacks against American and Iraqi Army patrols were a daily occurrence—as the deaths of 14 of my comrades can attest to. The markets were often deserted, locals refused to talk to American or Iraqi forces in public; the people were terrified.

In the Spring and Summer of 2007, a determined force of al Qaeda in Iraq fighters entered Ameriya and began to terrorize the population. The process was slow, but eventually it became clear that al Qaeda was enforcing their extremist ideologies on the population. Ultimately, they publicly declared Ameriya as their capital. Government buildings were being blown-up. Women were being murdered. We were in a daily fight for each city-block in our area, and there seemed little end in sight to the daily conflict. Ameriya, as one of my experienced Soldiers proclaimed at the time, had quickly become "the next Falluja." We did not, however, approach the situation in Ameriya as American forces had done with cities like Falluja.

Then, in late May, several dozen or so local citizens came forward and announced that they were going to fight the al Qaeda elements in Ameriya. My battalion, along with these local volunteers, established a base of operations at one of the local mosques and we began to target al Qaeda in the surrounding muhullahs. I remember spending long days and late nights at the mosque, working with these local citizens—most of whom had lived in Ameriya all of their lives—gathering intelligence from them, planning operations, and then moving out together and trying to capture al Qaeda fighters. One week's worth of operations with these local citizens yielded more results (multiple caches, detainees, etc.) for my platoon then the previous 7 months combined. Put quite simply, we began to see progress.

Since May, 1-5 CAV and the 2/1/6 Iraqi Army have worked with these local volunteers and helped to transform them from a few dozen local volunteers to what is now a legitimate contracted security force called the "Forsan al Rafidayn,"—"Knights of the Two Rivers," in English—or "FAR" as we Yankees call them. They are currently placed in various locations throughout Ameriya and are responsible for conducting policing operations and gathering intelligence. I have not witnessed any FAR members wearing masks in months. They are very effective, as Ameriya has not had an IED attack since August 7th and no type of effective small arms attack in an even longer time. Shi'ites who fled more than a year ago are returning in large numbers—often, with the FAR's help.

Ms. Jaber's assertion that some of the FAR had "been aligned with al Qaeda" is correct, however, to make this statement while further implying they have "created a virtual enclave" in Ameriya is to suggest that the members of the FAR continue to practice and advance al Qaeda's insurgent and ethno-sectarian agenda. The truth is that, like in every successful counter-insurgency, the citizens of Ameriya, and yes even some of the terrorists, decided they had enough of the violence and that it was time to work with, instead of against, Coalition Forces. While many people, including myself and most of my Soldiers, were at first apprehensive about working with these forces, we eventually realized that what occurred is what we had hoped for the entire time—the people grew tired of the violence and wanted to help the security forces rid the area of the enemy.

In her article, Ms. Jaber describes a visit to a local school with members of the FAR, where they "slapped" and "kicked" local students for having "un-Islamic ringtones" on their cell phones. I do not know which school Ms. Jaber went to (and I doubt she could recall the name of the school, or the name of the FAR member who committed the alleged offense), but from the experiences I have had conducting hundreds of patrols with the FAR, I can tell you that the likelihood of this happening is small, and, if it did, then it was the exception and certainly not the rule.

The FAR are not perfect, but neither is any security organization. When a complaint is received against a member of the FAR, a U.S. Army officer, as well as a member of the FAR, both conduct independent investigations. My Battalion Commander possesses the authority to terminate any member of the FAR who violates their signed-contract that bars them from participating in criminal acts. To date, several FAR members have been fired as a result of their misconduct, the majority of which have been done so not by U.S. officers, but by the members of the FAR themselves. They are policing their own ranks more each day.

Furthermore, Ms. Jaber’s "tag-a-long" imbedded journey through the streets of Ameriya—that lasted a very short time—was obviously predicated on a pessimistic agenda regarding the overall situation in Iraq. While she did in fact run into a young non-commissioned officer of the battalion eating a falafel on the main street in Ameriya—an event that simply could not have occurred six months ago—she also met the Battalion's Executive Officer, who at the time was escorting several other journalists on a dismounted patrol through Ameriya. Ms. Jaber was asked at that time if she wished to meet the leaders of 1-5 CAV, 2/1/6 IA, or the FAR in order to gain an understanding of how these security officials view the situation in Ameriya. Replying in the negative, she opted instead for an escort around Ameriya by several young members of the FAR, who, while committed to protecting the local population, are young, energetic, and eager to display their bravado to all who will pay attention. Ms. Jaber has been contacted by 1-5 CAV since her visit to Ameriya and continues to decline an opportunity to hear a different side of the story of Ameriya.

I invite Ms. Jaber to return to Ameriya. If she does, I will personally introduce her to some of my Iraqi friends who lived through the sectarian violence, the invasion of al Qaeda, and what will hopefully become, as the locals have begun to call it, "the re-birth of Ameriya."

Which account you find more credible, of course, may depend on your own biases.