"Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda"

From Allahpundit at Hotair (who seems to have gotten his sensibilities back).

Olbie compares Fox News to Al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Kan. The dude has lost his skill skull.

Maybe he's just permanently peeved because O'Reilly beats him like a drum every night.

Hellfire and Brimstone: Killing al Qaeda in Samarra

Jeff Emanuel, embedded in Iraq:

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“We’ve been told that ‘no al Qaeda sleep in the city,’” Captain Buddy Ferris, commander of the 82nd Airborne’s Charlie Company 2-505 (the battalion is also known as “2-Panther”), told me. His Company is the lone conventional unit responsible for the city of Samarra and the entirety of the sparsely populated (and therefore perfect for hiding people and weapons) surrounding countryside. “They know that we’ll hunt them down and kill them.”

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Go read the full post.

We are fortunate to have so many brave journalists willing to endure the rigors of war to bring us the stories that the "Rashid Bureau" of the MSM can not or will not tell. Michael Yon. Michael Totten. Jeff Emanuel. Wes Morgan. Matt Sanchez.

The constant drone of negativity and defeat, interspersed with spectacular stories like the Haditha trial, the Yazidi bombing and the shootout in Karbala last month, create an environment in which the American public expects failure. The dispatches we get from the embedded journalists tell a very different story.

Our guys are winning this thing, and creating a very differnt environment on the ground in Iraq.

Geraldo: I’d spit on Michelle if I saw her

Nice.

A fundamental trait of intellectual dishonesty is not being able to remember the lie you told yesterday. Or, last week. Or, last month. Or, last season. Or...

You just can't remember how much foolishness you've spread, period.

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Now I want you to go watch this clip from Cavuto's show last week; skip ahead to the middle to hear him whine about how "this kind of personal, kind of gutter rhetoric is the product of this hate campaign directed against illegal aliens."

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Read the story here.

Brian De Palma…Jackass

DrewM, blogging at Ace of Spades HQ has a brilliant and searing post about Brian De Palma's tour de idiocy, Images Redacted:

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Now what happened at Mahmudiyah was a crime of almost unimaginable horror. It’s also one that has been thoroughly investigated and prosecuted. Those involved (with the exception of one defendant who is still awaiting trial) have been tried and sentenced to prison terms ranging from 5 to 100 years.

Apparently De Palma couldn’t find any stories that interested him of American heroes, men who gave their lives to save their fellow Americans or who try and make the life of Iraqi children a little better. I doubt he even bothered to look for them.

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Media Misleads with August Death Toll Figure

Iraqi civilian deaths rise slightly in August - Yahoo! News:

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Civilian deaths from violence in Iraq rose slightly in August, with 1,773 people killed, government statistics showed on Saturday.

The figures from various ministries showed 87 police and army personnel reported killed in August, a big drop from the previous month when 224 were killed. The civilian toll was up 7 percent from 1,653 people killed in July. But it was unclear how the figure was affected by the death toll from massive truck bomb attacks against the minority Yazidi community in northern Iraq on August 14.

More than 500 people were killed in those bombings, the Iraqi Red Crescent has said. The provincial governor of the area has put the death toll at 344 with 70 still missing."

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It's official: Reuters believes you are stupid enough to be misled by this report.

The Yazidi village hit by the August 14 bombing is in the Kurdish region, near the border with Syria. It is so far out in the boonies that no U.S. troops have been in the region for months. Estimates say 400 people were killed in the attack, with the Red Crescent figure approaching a questionable 500 killed. At the same time of this attack, tens of thousands of Shiites were making a pilgrimage through Baghdad, along streets lined with Sunni neighborhoods and former Al Qaeda safe havens. Al Qaeda and irreconcilable Sunni insurgents chose not to attack that pilgrimage.

Why? Because security was so tight that attempting a spectacular attack would have been futile. Instead, AQI chose a remote village in the middle of nowhere.

It is certainly NOT unclear how that attack affected the civilian death toll. If you split the difference and say 450 were killed in the attack, and take that figure out of the 1,773 killed in August (a number which itself is impossible to verify), then the death toll would have come in at 1,323, which represents a sharp decline from the July figure of 1,643.

If we accept the Provincial Governor's toll of 344 dead in the Yazidi incident, the figure for August would have been 1,429. Still a large number, but still a decrease from July.

In a population of 24 million, 1,429 represents a death rate of 0.0060%. That's six-thousandths of one percent, or about six people per 100,000. These are infinitesimally small figures. Large events like the Yazidi bombing impact these numbers significantly. A small change in a small number can have a large impact.

Reuters, and the other news outlets that tell you the death toll is rising may be technically accurate, but are certainly misleading.

Basra Reports "fabrication at best," says General

More Big Picturing from Protein Wisdom, reporting on Hugh Hewitt's interview with LTG James Simmons, Deputy CG, MNF-Iraq:

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JS: [Those reports] are not accurate, and that is a fabrication at best. This was a planned turnover of the Palace and the PJCC to Iraqi control, to the Iraqi legitimate government forces. It was done to standard with, and to well-trained, well-equipped Iraqi Security Forces. There were some peaceful demonstrations that were celebratory in nature, but at no time was any Coalition forces threatened, and the local Iraqi officials under General Mohan, kept a good handle on the situation in Basra.

HH: So what is the situation then in Basra, because that Washington Post story made it sound like the Wild West without the saloons.

JS: It was a demonstration of OMS, or Shia people there that were celebrating, to the best of my knowledge, the return of an Iraqi landmark to the Iraqi government.

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A Thorough Indictment

How would you like to see a comprehensive convincingly well documented analysis of how poorly the mainstream media has done its job on coverage in Iraq?

Protein Wisdom has just such a post here.

I counted 152 links embedded in the post. Not all of them link to examples of media bias or shoddy journalism, as quite a few of them show how bloggers and conservative media outlets have largely either gotten it right or took on the task of correcting MSM gaffes.

I'm bookmarking the post--it is a one-stop library of source material to back up allegations of journalistic failure.

Burning Another Beauchamp

At Confederate Yankee, a lively and fascinating discussion is taking place over an accusation of conservative media dishonesty by Harper's Scott Horton. Horton accuses a prominent conservative commentator of creating "pure fabrications," and cites as evidence his direct experience at the location in question:

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.

CY denizens respond by demonstrating that Horton was probably not in the area at the time the alleged "fabrication" was written. There is a good chance that the piece Horton refers to is either this NYSun Op/Ed by Fred Kagen:

It is true that the overall level of violence in Iraq remains high, and American soldiers are still dying. Scores of terrorists flow into Iraq every month, detonating suicide car bombs against civilians, Iraqi security forces and American troops. This is the core of the security problem faced by our troops and by innocent Iraqis.

But looking at these casualty numbers alone distorts reality. Security is improving across Baghdad, even in traditionally bad areas. In early May, I walked and drove through these neighborhoods. Haifa St., scene of day-long gunfights between Al Qaeda terrorists and coalition forces in January, is calm and starting to revive. Its market is open and flourishing.

Or, it could be this Weekly Standard Op/Ed by feared and hated William Kristol:

"We went through two of the worst Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad... heavily infested with al Qaeda and other terrorists who terrorize the population and drive them to support or at least tolerate attacks against us. But the kids on the streets--and there were many--waved, smiled, asked for candy. The locals give us tips and ask us to get the terrorists out of the area and, above all, to protect them. We walked through a market off of Haifa Street--remember, the site of that long-running gun-battle back in January that made so much news? The market was thriving, flourishing, the local U.S. commander knew everyone and everyone knew him. The kids thronged around us, laughing, asking for candy... .

Both of these items describe conditions as seen by the scribe in May of this year. However, there is no evidence at all that Horton was even in Iraq in May, 2007. In fact, Horton has apparently not been in Iraq since Spring 2006.

Meanwhile, kat-missouri of Middleground painstakingly documents how Haifa Street has been in a state of flux almost since the beginning of the insurgency, with the most recent reports indicating that Kagen and Kristol's accounts were accurate. Given their professional relationship and Kristol stating that he was relating the observations of a friend, the two accounts could be of the same events.

We have no journalistic accounts of Haifa Street by Horton in 2007.

What fascinates me about CY's discussion is that Bob originally started out with an intellectually honest question about whether a conservative writer was "Beauchamping" his story. Instead, it appears the worm has turned and it is the liberal who gets burned for dishonesty.

"OFF with their Head...lines.

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Clickie the thumbnail for the full size image.

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I wonder how long that headline / image combo lasts...

H/T Ace of Spades HQ

UPDATE: All of 15 minutes after Ace's post.

Screen caps are forever, baby.

The Real Lesson From The Beachamp Affair

For former President Richard Nixon, it was not the Watergate break-in that toppled his Presidency. It was the web of lies, secrecy and deceit that followed. Nixon learned the hard way that it's not the crime; it's the coverup that counts.

For former President Bill Clinton, it was not the blue dress or the act that stained it. It was the perjury, the wagon-circling and subornation of perjury that led to his historic impeachment trial and forever soiled his legacy. Mr. Clinton learned a lesson that his mother should have taught him by age 4: If you've done something wrong, fess up to it and take your medicine. If you lie about it and get caught, you'll get a dose you'll not soon forget. The mythical "father, I cannot tell a lie" anecdote about George Washington and the Cherry Tree sends a message that rings true whether the incident took place or not: Tell the truth about your missteps and you will be forgiven. Catholics, through the Sacrament of Confession, are allowed opportunities to confess their sins, do Penance and receive Absolution. Our society's fabric is woven with the thread of truth because the ability to trust and believe one another is so important to the social contract.

Journalists enjoy no immunity to the terms of that contract. We expect journalists to tell us the truth when reporting straight news stories, acknowledge bias in opinion pieces, correct errors when they are discovered and rid themselves of those whose only intent is to deceive. Hence the storm of criticism of The New Republic over the alleged "Baghdad Diarist" stories, written by PVT Scott Beachamp. As soon as the factual basis for the anecdotes disintegrated, TNR should have printed a retraction and ceased any further relationships with PVT Beauchamp.

Instead, TNR Editor Franklin Foer donned the ideological blinders and circled the wagons. As The Weekly Standard, Confederate Yankee, Ace of Spades HQ and Little Green Footballs peeled away the last husks of credibility from the anecdotes, it became clear to all but the staunchest defenders of TNR that a serious fraud had been perpetrated against the publication.

Thirty-three years ago this month, Senator Barry Goldwater led a group of courageous GOP lawmakers to a meeting at the White House. There, Senator Goldwater famously informed Nixon that the votes to convict were there and that he must either resign or be forced from office.

While the Beauchamp affair is in no fashion as earthshaking as the resignation of the President of the United States, one has to ponder the gravity of a news media that has become more interested in protecting its image than it is in finding the truth. Very recently, scandals associated with faulty reporting and outright deceipt have been hung on The Associated Press and Agence France Presse. AP has published factually decrepit stories on civilian casualties and ammunition shortages. AFP has been caught three times in photographic journalism deceipt. As with the TNR "Baghdad Diarist" affair, it took extraordinary journalism on the part of the bloggers to root out the truth. While no single blogger can compete with an army of stringers, researchers, reporters and fact-checkers, the blogging community as a whole most certainly can.

It most certainly will, too. The mainstream media must be put on notice: We expect you to fess up and take your medicine when you've screwed up. Your sins will be forgiven, but only after an appropriate penance. If you lie to us though, and try to conceal your wrongdoing, and there will be HELL TO PAY.

Lancet's Boil

The American Spectator: Lancet's Boil


Michael Fumento writes about a paper from David Kane, a fellow at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Kane is essentially a stats geek. What he's done is conducted a statistical analysis of the Lancet medical journal's 2004 study, which concluded that U.S. military operations caused at least 100,000 deaths in Iraq.

Kane's conclusion: Upon inclusion of data the Lancet ignored out of political convenience, the confidence limits associated with the estimate are so wide that the lower limit is negative (which means there is a small chance that the invasion saved lives or... resurrected dead Iraqis).

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

And geeks who get it right.

Confederate Yankee: Yet Again: AFP's Photo Woes Continue

Fresh off of being caught trying to pass off unfired civilian ammunition as evidence of soldiers shooting into the home of an elderly Iraqi woman, the French news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has been caught once again in a photography scandal involving the U.S. military, this time misidentifying a U.S. military photo taken by a member of the 173rd Airborne in Afghanistan last month as one of their own.

Confederate Yankee: