Sadly, No!

The past week has found the WingNet standing, as in a waking anxiety dream, in the middle of a gaping crowd wearing nothing but its tattered underoos.

But as Digby mentions, the more blatantly they reject sense and reason, the more meretriciously they seem to get away with it. Ol’ Malkin shows how it’s done in this long-overdue apology and correction from Saturday.

Above: “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Shorter Michelle Malkin: “I was minding my own business when…”

Corrections
By Michelle Malkin

On December 26 and December 27, I linked to a photo publicized by radio talker Scott Hennen and Power Line of Sen. John Kerry in Iraq. Milblogger Ben of Mesopotamia, an Army Captain in Iraq, had posted the photo and recounted on Dec. 18:

On Saturday night, a colleague emailed me and told me to bring my camera, as Senator Kerry was scheduled to give a press conference here in the Palace. At 2100, he entered a conference room wearing his leather flight jacket. Unfortunately, there was no media there, except for the enlisted soldiers from AFTN (Armed Forces Television Network) who had to be there. His aide looked around, saw that this just wasn’t happening, and quickly escorted Kerry out before I could take a picture.

Finally, the next morning, Senator Kerry ate chow at the Dining Facility. Normally when a Senator/Representative visits, he is joined by a contingent of soldiers/Marines/airmen from his home state. Despite the fact that the MP unit responsible for Green Zone security is an Army Reserve unit from Massachusetts, not a single soldier went to sit with him. (By contrast, Bill O’Reilly, host of that terrible shoutfest on Fox, had over 400 soldiers waiting in line to meet him on Saturday).

Shorter Michelle Malkin: “Then, as I was dancing in sparkling light wearing my tiara, TPM Muckraker flung itself into an unhinged tantrum of fact-checking.”

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Big Daddy Ezra K expresses his disdain for small talk:

I find small talk excruciating, all the more so because its rhythmic, deadening script offers so little room for escape into more interesting topics. Trapped in pleasantries, I’ll spend most of my mental energy trying to figure out how the conversation can hook into something more dense and enjoyable, and often remain incapable of getting it there. Which is odd, because I have lots of opinions on controversial, upsetting, conversation-worthy things.

To which I reply: most people just don’t enjoy talking about controversial, upsetting, conversation-worthy things.

In many ways, I sympathize with Ezra. I find chatting about my work, my hobbies and my overall daily life to be excruciatingly tedious and dull, mostly because daily life is excruciatingly tedious and dull, which is due in no small part to the fact that I spend a good deal of it discussing my daily life, which is excr… well, you get the idea.

Gavin adds: I get a huge boner on Laundry Day, but that’s only every couple of months.

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I’m still out of town, in a place with cows and goats and a weekly bluegrass jamboree down at the end of the road.

Oh, wait! I asked everybody to mention that I was out of town, and nobody did!

[insert photoshop of Brad, Travis, and Retardo’s heads pasted onto the bodies of cows]

Moo, gentlemen. Moo!

Meanwhile, back in the jungle:

So, just to re-cap the week in Right-Wing Blogosphere Credibility:

* they suffered a complete humiliation on their Jamil Hussein “scandal”

* they are forced to retract their John Kerry “dining alone” story in Iraq

* there is a possible, pending humiliation over its Michael Ledeen “scoop” about the death of the Iranian leader

Mr. Hugh Miliation has been whopping at their doors for years now, bearing a subpoena, but they always seem to be in the shower when he comes.

See Confederate Yankee and Dan Riehl for some fun. Apparently it’s not their fault, but collective-ours and that guy’s and the AP’s and the far-left’s, and this guy’s — but especially ours, collectively, for being against the troops or something. It’s really quite stunning.

Dear WingNet: Please eat it, cobag. No, after you. No, please have a piece. Rrrmm, here comes the airplane!

I have a severely patchy-ass ‘Net connection here, so lemme just bow out gracefully before this thing crashes, because if

[howling of wilderness]

Here’s a quick summary of everything Michelle Malkin has posted since Thursday, when the Associated Press reported that Jamil Hussein did in fact exist:

1.) Barney Frank is mean!

2.) A wingnut blogger in Fallujah says everything’s going great!

3.) More awesome news from Iraq, reported by more super-credible wingnut bloggers!

And that’s it. Three pathetic little posts, none of them longer than a sentence. For a woman who specializes in writing “GAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! BLARRRRG, BLARRRRG, GAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!” 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, this relative silence is somewhat surprising. Do you suppose Michelle’s conscience has taken a bit of a hit over being so disastrously wrong about this whole sorry affair? Has she finally realized that her irresponsible braying has gotten somebody arrested for the high crime of talking to reporters? Or do you think she’s frantically searching out for the next “MSM R H8RZ, IRAQ 1Z TEH R0XX0R!” conspiracy theory?

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Noted internet expert Roy at alicublog notes that Ace at Ace of Spades is linking to a link to porn*:

MORAL GUIDEBOOK — COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED! Ace of Spades will link you to hot pics of a naked cheerleader, but first you have to listen to a lecture:

Roy quotes said lecture, (thank you, Roy), but skips over the best part (no, not the bisque), Ace’s insightful analysis:

Some will say stories like this, and the Texas high school cheerleader scandal, don’t indicate anything more than the fact that the media is now giving these stories play. I.e., this has always been going on, now our sensationalist, 24-hour-cycle media is just telling us about it.

That’s nonsense. This has never happened before.

This, for those willing click on the appropriate links, involves close-ups of a young woman’s vagina, either alone or in the company of a dildo or some dude’s penis. [Thizzle for thosizzle wizzle clizzle on thizzle approprizzle lizzle involvizzle closizzle of a young womizzle vizzle eizzle alonizzle or in thizzle compizzle of a dizzle or somizzle dudizzle pizzle.]

But don’t call yet — if the blog’s a-wankin’, don’t come a-knockin’:

Still: Ten years ago? Virtually impossible to get a young girl to do this. And God knows I tried! [Emphasis and Ace’s secret mental thoughts in italics added.]

* Yes, this means that Ace (never mind Roy) now has some curious affiliations.

Added: Nitpicker also offers some thoughts.

Blogs for Bush is teh awesomest weblog is teh HISTORY of teh weblog. Check out today’s piece, where Mark Noonan threatens to ban commenters who are too mean to him:

Note to Readers

We here at Blogs for Bush like to encourage lively debate – we believe in the free and fair give and take because we know that conservative Republican ideas will always beat liberal Democratic ideas in such a debate. In service of this goal, we try to be as flexible as possible in the sorts of comments we allow, but lately we have been getting a lot of complaints which are fully justified.

We have banned a few of the worst offenders over the past few days, and we hope this improves the tone of our debate. I would like to take this opportuntiy to state some groundrules we try to live by:

1. No racial, ethnic, religious or sexual slurs.

Yeah, no more calling Mark “Drunky McShamrock,” you bigots.

2. No foul language – anything more harsh than “damn” or “hell” is entirely unacceptable, and we encourage people to stay away from even mildly bad language.

Duly fucking noted.

3. You shall not insult the writers of this blog – an insult is to call us liars, cowards and such things. Calling us stupid is ok, but we expect a full and reasonable explanation of why you think we’re stupid.

Does “You’re Mark Noonan and you write at Blogs for Bush” qualify? Because I think that’s a pretty air-tight case right there.

Jules Crittenden, writing about the Iraqi Interior Ministry’s admission that Jamil Hussein does exist:

My big question: If we were supposed to believe the AP when the AP said the MOI’s Khalaf didn’t know what he was talking about, why are we supposed to believe Khalaf now that the AP says he does know what he’s talking about? Especially when the AP, which has stalwartly stood by Jamil Hussein’s existence as a source, has backed off what Hussein told them about four mosques burning?

Just asking. Has this thing morphed from false but true to true but false?

The answer is, “you’re a fucking idiot.”

Amazingly, the Boston Herald pays Jules to write for them on a regular basis (typical column title: “Leadership Defined, Bush Stays Course“). Wingnut welfare is an amazing thing.

Hey, remember Jamil Hussein? You know, the Iraqi police officer who told the Associated Press about Sunnis being burned to death by Shiites in Iraq? The one whom the wingnutosphere insisted again and again and again and again and again didn’t exist and was just part of an elaborate web of MSM lies to make the situation in Iraq look worse than it was (and really, it wasn’t even bad at all anyway)?

Well, it turns out that he’s real. And because of the wingnutosphere’s insane braying, he’s now been arrested for the high crime of talking to reporters (via Nitpicker):

The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

The captain, whose full name is Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, was one of the sources for an AP story in late November about the burning and shooting of six people during a sectarian attack at a Sunni mosque.

The U.S. military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry raised the doubts about Hussein in questioning the veracity of the AP’s initial reporting on the incident, and the Iraqi ministry suggested that many news organization were giving a distorted, exaggerated picture of the conflict in Iraq. Some Internet bloggers spread and amplified these doubts, accusing the AP of having made up Hussein’s identity in order to disseminate false news about the war.

Neat. Of course, if you expected the wingnutosphere to be conciliatory about being completely wrong and full of shit about everything, you’d be sadly mistaken. Here’s Dan Riehl:

Fascinating. But let me be the first to say to the Left, before they lose themselves in glee, I don’t see that bloggers have anything to apologize for, nor do I see this story being at an end. The ultimate question is what happened in Hurriya the day six Sunnis were claimed to have been burned alive?

Did it happen? Is Shi’ite domination of one or more ministries trying to cover up violence by Shi’ite factions? Or is Hussein unreliable as a source?

If the story ends up being an expose’ on a troubling Shi’ite dominated Iraqi regime, as opposed to the AP being light on sourcing, so be it. Like most bloggers following this story, all I have ever wanted is the truth.

Oh. My. God. Just. Shut. Up.

You guys are wrong about everything all the time and you show no shame about it. Doesn’t that bother you at all? Consider that normal people- people with actual souls- would have quietly slid away from the public spotlight after being exposed as complete frauds. But y’all cuckoos in the wingnutosphere? Pffffft! Once this fake MSM conspiracy theory has been debunked, y’all’ll just start combing through Reuters photos to see if there’s any added smoke. Losers.

UPDATE: I’m a big Greg Sargent fan, but he’s way off base here:

The Associated Press has just struck back very hard against the wingnuts who have been sliming the news org over the case of missing police captain Jamil Hussein — and it looks as if there may soon be lots of crow-eating going on in right blogistan.

Nope, sorry Greg. The wingnutosphere never eats crow. First they’ll acknowledge that Hussein does exist, but then add that there are still a lot of questions to be answered about the AP’s report. The next thing that happens is they never answer those questions and move on. Lastly, they start leafing through every goddamn wire photo on the Internet to search for evidence of photoshopping or tampering of any kind. When they finally find something (or hell, even if don’t) they’ll start braying and shrieking about how the Iraq war is going just fine, and that journalists only report bad news because they hate the troops. This is how they play the game. They will never change because they have no souls.

UPDATE II: Damn you, TBogg. Damn you to hell. There’s only so much Riehl-riehlated idiocy I can stand for one day.

Sigh:

The Time for War With Iran is Now

By Mark Noonan at 08:56 AM

I don’t need to read the rest. The headline says it all.

Marie. My God, Marie. Are you trying to kill me?

For the sake of our children, library confidentiality regulations must go!

Marie Jon’ and Erik Rush
January 3, 2007

WBBM-TV, the Chicago CBS news affiliate broadcast a story on November 3, 2006 followed by a synopsis on their website entitled “Your Library May Be A Safe Haven For Criminals; Library Confidential: Police Say Library Law Hinders Their Ability To Nab Offenders.” The story focused on the little-known law that has media attention, but only from conscientious, non-mainstream journalists.

Apparently, a CBS news affiliate in Chicago counts as a “non-mainstream journalism” outfit.

The station’s story focused on a Naperville, Ill. Incident in which one Richard Blaszak was observed inappropriately touching himself at the Naperville library on more than one occasion. Finally, police were called.

Alas, Blaszak had left the premises by the time police arrived. This technicality provided for his protection under the State’s Library Confidentiality Act, a law that has been adopted by many states in accord with The American Library Association’s (ALA; http://www.ala.org) “Library Bill of Rights,” adopted in 2002.

I did a little bit of research into Marie’s story- which was apparently a lot more research than she did on it- and I found some, how you say, completely embarrassing errors in her account.

1.) The library was not using the Library Bill of Rights as justification for not cooperating with police. They were using the Library Confidentiality Act, which was adopted in 1983. Also, the Library Confidentiality Act doesn’t protect people for crimes they commit while in public libraries; rather, it only states that police must get a warrant to force librarians to cooperate. Granted, I think that’s completely retarded, but as you’ll see later, the problem got solved.

2.) Blaszak actually was arrested and pleaded guilty to indecent exposure a couple of months ago.

3.) The Naperville City Council voted unanimously to amend the Act to compel library staff to cooperate with police in the event of criminal activity on library premises.

So basically, Marie, you have no story. None. The problem has been fixed.

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