Big props to Mary Katharine Ham for calling out the one-eyed, left-wing women bloggers (who still won’t admit their blind spot) and for demonstrating tough, but civil disagreement by example. Brava.

Salon’s Joan Walsh argued on Howard Kurtz’s TV show that it didn’t really matter that she failed to mention female hate-mongers like “Sandpaper sn**ch” Jane Hamsher or the racist, sexist ping-pong ball jokers at Wonkette because I received “plenty of attention” when I’ve pointed out vulgarity aimed at conservative women.

Really? I don’t remember The Guardian asking Kate O’Beirne to pen an op-ed for them about Hamsher’s filthy attack on her. No one put our pictures in the NYTimes for weathering epithets, sexist putdowns and death threats–many of which, unlike Sierra’s, were signed and endorsed by major bloggers–and not just random, obscure, anonymous commenters.

Walsh also argued that the reason she decided to pay attention to misogyny in the blogosphere now is because Sierra is a “techblogger” trying to “make the web a better community.”

As opposed to us Christofascist wingnut women bloggers who deserve what we get because we’re just trying to use the web to spread poisonous conservative ideas…

***

Here’s a review of my “code of conduct” on how to cope with Internet threats:

1) Report the serious threats to law enforcement.
2) Keep blogging.

***

Previous:

A message to the techblogging elite

Eason Jordan has further comment on his invitation and my acceptance:

Some of you have asked what’s up with IraqSlogger’s invitation to send Michelle Malkin to Iraq. It was a serious invitation, she accepted it, she asked if I’d also pay for her to take along Curt of the Flopping Aces blog, I said yes, and now we’re working to arrange the trip. This is an enormously complicated journey to arrange, with safety and security being paramount concerns. This is serious stuff, and I’m taking the conversation with Michelle offline until we have a meaningful advance in the story to share with you.

There are people on both sides of the blogosphere who think this is some kind of joke. Others are using it as yet another opportunity to hurl slime, hate, and stupidity. You want to see me shot in the face or dead. Ha, ha, ha.

I know that neither Curt nor my co-workers nor I–nor our families–is taking this lightly. There’s nothing funny about this undertaking. When I have more I can tell you, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, you’ll recall that two days ago, I noted Eric Boehlert’s blogger-bashing screed about the AP six burning Sunnis/Jamil Hussein controversy, which was posted on left-wing Media Matters.

Yesterday, there was a very compelling post on Media Matters taking Boehlert to task. (Hat tip: See-dubya) The author is Robert Bateman, the war historian whose op-ed on his experience with the AP attack machine I linked last week. Here’s what he has to say (excerpt is lengthy, but must-read):

Eric B is wrong, in my opinion, because the controversy involved in this story of AP reporting is not, after all, a story about the political “Right” (and Military) versus “Left”, but in reality a simple one of sourcing. In the original AP story, remember, FOUR mosques were attacked, and firebombed and/or blown up, and six, or perhaps twelve, Sunni worshippers burned to death.

Then some right-wing bloggers noted that the main source, the often-quoted “Captain Jamil Hussein,” was only quoted when Sunnis were killed. Folks, that just doesn’t make sense. It was at that point that the AP went on the attack. They re-reported, and in their follow-on story, only one mosque was burned, but then the AP rebuts with, “… allegations were checked with the AP reporter, who had been in routine contact for more than two years with Hussein, in some cases sitting in his office in the Yarmouk police station in west Baghdad. Hussein wore a police uniform during the face-to-face meetings.” They also said they had new (unnamed) sources, and provided specifics like the “fact” that it was a 1.3 gallon container of kerosene used to immolate the six men.

Now, setting aside the fact that 1.3 gallons would only give about two pints per man. Setting aside also the fact that the AP changed the story from the first version to the second, (where there were four mosques burned and/or blown up in the first version, in the second it is only one, where as many as twelve were killed by burning in the first version, in the second it is only six). Ignore the fact that the Sunnis themselves do not seem to be focusing on this story. And finally, skip over the fact that in the past some American journalism outlets, and particularly their overseas bureaus in a war zone, have in fact harbored real, live, spies for the enemy. (That happened to Time in Vietnam, when they hired a North Vietnamese intelligence officer as a stringer in Saigon.) Forget all of that for a second, and still some facts of geography threw me off as being inaccurate.

The AP, I should note, in their counterattack against those who questioned their story and sources, said, “It’s awfully easy to take pot shots from the safety of a computer keyboard thousands of miles from the chaos of Baghdad.” The AP executive who said that did so from New York City, but ya know what? Unlike that AP editor, I know something about Baghdad. Having lived in Iraq for a year (returning this past February, if you all recall), and knowing Baghdad well, one additional thing that has blown my mind about this, and the silence from the majority of the media (except E&P, which is covering the story well), is a simple element of geography.

The AP cites their source as being an officer in the Yarmouk district of Baghdad. Fine. Most people in the U.S. and the world don’t know Baghdad’s geography. But the question that hit me is “why is somebody in Yarmouk the main quoted source (originally) for a story about events in Hurriyah?”

Yarmouk is a neighborhood on the north side of what many people know as “Route Irish.” Between Yarmouk and Hurriyah neighborhood are the districts of Al Andalous and Al Mansoor (parallel w/ each other), above that is Al Mutanabbi, and above that is Al Urubah … before you get to Hurriyah. It’s more than 3 miles away. Now for country folk like me, 3 miles isn’t but spitting distance. But in a city of 7 million, like NYC or Baghdad, 3 miles is a huge distance.

In other words, in going to their “normal” source for this story, the AP went to the equivalent of a Brooklyn local police precinct for a story that occurred in northern Yonkers! Hello? What would a cop in Brooklyn know about a crime in Yonkers? That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. (And why didn’t the AP reveal, until challenged, that this source was not from the district where the events allegedly occurred, or even from a neighboring district, but is from a moderately distant part of this 7-million-person city?)

Read the whole thing.

If some of Bateman’s questions sound familiar, it’s because you read them first at Flopping Aces (via Uncommon Misconceptions)–back on November 29th.

Dan Riehl is also pulling up maps and raises more questions about the hospital morgue.

It is encouraging to see the AP matter being taken seriously by a few on the Left. It’s ridiculous the AP has let it fester. It’s even more ridiculous that the rest of their MSM colleagues have let them skate this long.

Future women leaders of America beware: if you plan on a career in politics, don’t allow yourself to be photographed in a bikini. Especially if you’re the type of woman who speaks out against the sexualization of young girls, the media will be eager to use it against you.

That is what we learned from conservative author Michelle Malkin last week. After she wrote a column criticizing once-wholesome singer Charlotte Church for her slide into pop star hedonism, left-wing Internet blogs discovered photographs of Malkin on spring break fourteen years ago. Accompanied by headlines like “Michelle Malkin gone wild” and “Michelle, you ignorant slut,” the blogs linked to a photo-sharing page that featured Malkin cavorting with girlfriends and posing in a string bikini.

It seemed like the perfect “gotcha” moment for the liberal blogosphere. But there was a problem: the photo page wasn’t real. I know this because most of the pictures on it belong to me.

Whoever made the photo page apparently wasn’t content to insult Malkin, an Asian woman, with racial slurs – a popular activity among her critics. Instead, they aimed to expose her as a hypocrite. Using pictures stolen from various Webshots.com accounts, including mine, the creator wrote captions to imply that I had had been a classmate of Malkin’s at Oberlin College in the early 90s – and that she was anything but a moralist back then.

By the time I discovered the hoax, liberal blogs were already hard at work smearing Malkin as a “slut,” “hussy,” and “b-tch.”

I was shocked as I scrolled through posts and reader comments about my pictures, some of them photoshopped or falsely labeled as pictures of Malkin. Racist jokes and sexual denigration were common themes.

Beneath a picture of me with a close friend from high school, someone had written, “She looks so happy back then…I wonder what made her become such a bitch? Maybe her grandma never sent her a care pack of adobo and lumpia shanghai.”

When someone commented that the photo of Malkin in a skimpy bikini appeared to be photoshopped, a reader responded, “A too small head on Malkin’s body doesn’t mean it’s Photoshopped. It just means that she has to put in the extra effort when she gives blow jobs.” The malicious posts did not appear on obscure blogs serving the political fringe. In fact, the most aggressive attacks came from a law professor at the University of North Carolina and a blog conglomerate valued at $76 million. Despite Malkin’s insistence that the photo site was an obvious forgery, the blogs continued to deride her as a hypocrite and, above all, a “skank.”

Still, I was confident that I could put an end to the hoax by coming forward as the owner of the photographs. I wrote an e-mail to Wonkette, the blog that first posted the pictures. I explained that only one picture on the page showed the real Michelle Malkin – I took it at the Conservative Political Action Conference last February, where I briefly met her. The others had been stolen from my webpage.

Three days later my letter remained unanswered, and the smear campaign against Malkin raged on. I sent a second request to Gawker, the media empire that owns Wonkette, detailing the theft of my pictures. I was optimistic that a conglomerate worth tens of millions of dollars would show some accountability toward its audience.

Two days have passed, and my inbox is still empty.

This is the brave new world of Internet media. Like many Americans, I entered it with a naïve notion of bloggers as modern-day pamphleteers, throwing the cover off stories that the establishment media won’t touch. I believed that Internet blogs, being far more democratic mediums than mainstream television networks and newspapers, would show respect for the truth.

But after visiting a few popular blogs, I realized I was sadly mistaken. At best, many zero in on political gossip and absurd non-issues, such as whether a conservative author ever posed in a swimsuit. At worst, many political blogs are cesspools of racism, misogyny, and obscenity, not to mention vicious lies.

The posts and links to my pictures are still up, and I’m no longer anticipating a response from Gawker. They are a multimillion-dollar behemoth; I’m a college kid with a claim to a few stolen photographs. They have nothing to lose by ignoring me.

However, it seems the fallout from the Malkin hoax is far from over. This morning, I received an anxious message from an Ohio State student who had just discovered the fake photo page.

She identified herself as “the girl in the bikini” and explained that Malkin’s face had been photoshopped onto her body. She asked what we could do to stop the pictures from being circulated.

The answer, unfortunately, is probably “nothing.” Gawker and its ilk appear willing to perpetuate bald-faced lies in order to advance an agenda. And they don’t mind taking a few innocent college girls along for the ride.

More here.

Ashley, you’ll be glad to know, is studying journalism. She’s a tough cookie who now understands the depths of the unhinged liberal psyche from firsthand experience–and she’ll be a great addition to our ranks. It’s the silver lining.

***

Here’s a message from Meredith Chan, the girl in the bikini, posted at the fake Flickr site:

***

Previous:

A personal aside
The Gawker smear machine
Malkin Derangement Syndrome
Do you think this is funny?

Today, a pause from regularly scheduled blogging.

I love what I do. I count my blessings every day that I can make a living as a writer. I have been privileged to meet and work with and befriend some of the most brilliant, funny, engaging, talented people through the Internet. I’ve derived immense inspiration, stimulation, entertainment, and courage from fellow bloggers and readers over the last two years.

There are many unhinged people who would like me to shut up. There are those who engage routinely in active defamation and empty ad hominem attacks. There are also those who enable, excuse, and snicker at these attacks.

When I ignore them, lies are perpetuated and assumed to be true. When I respond, I am belittled as a self-promoter, whiner, humorless scold, and opportunist. Trolls at places like the Democratic Underground and obscure far-left blogs don’t warrant responses. But when the attacks come from a publicly subsidized UNC law professor and the largest blog conglomerate (valued at $76 million in 2005), they cannot go unanswered.

There seem to be some very dense people who don’t understand that this is not just about a bikini Photoshop. It is about disseminating the fake photo to cast me in a false light and “prove” that I’m somehow a hypocrite.

Someone created a fake Flickr site by filching photos from an innocent college undergrad’s Webshots site without her permission or knowledge. That student is Ashley Herzog of Ohio University, whom I heard from yesterday. She is upset and embarrassed to see her photos manipulated, and I am sorry she was dragged into someone’s deranged scheme because she happened to have her photo taken with me at CPAC earlier this year. Whoever created the fake Flickr site intended to mislead viewers into believing that Herzog was a classmate of mine 14 years ago. Whoever created the fake Flickr site went to the trouble of posting a photo of a dorm from my alma mater to give it authenticity.

Nobody would fall for such obvious fakery, right?

A law school professor did. Major gossip sites took the bait. Some people still refuse to believe it’s all fake.

If one anonymous creep, still out there somewhere, can successfully dupe supposedly smart people into believing his/her dumb but relatively innocuous Photoshops of me are real, I can only imagine what far worse things may be done.

But I’m supposed to just laugh along.

I don’t consider it pointless to hold up a mirror to liberals who think racist ping-pong ball jokes are respectable discourse. The Wonkette editors slimed me with that in response to a light-hearted Vent episode I did on the lack of conservative speakers at commencement addresses. For not laughing along with their senseless abuse, I’m considered a prude.

I don’t consider it pointless to note that the hate-filled cowards at Gawker Media have a pattern of repeatedly smearing and attempting to humiliate me. I have ignored most of their petty, pointless jibes. But I would not let Friday’s attack go unanswered. For responding to their idiocy, Wonkette guest Ken Layne accuses me of being a publicity seeker.

You posted the picture. You engaged in gratuitous insults. You had nothing better to write about.

But how dare I respond.

I don’t consider it pointless to note that a professor with whom I cordially engaged in lengthy debates over profiling and WWII history has descended into madness. I invited Muller to appear with me on radio. I encouraged students to read our extensive blog exchanges and gave out his website address on C-SPAN and in countless other appearances. If you paid attention to his behavior over the course of those interactions, what he did on Friday was no surprise. He called on his readers to get my book banned. He helped organize a “Historians’ Committee for Fairness” that demanded that any media organization that had me on to talk about my book “formally apologize to the Japanese Americans who have been slandered by Ms. Malkin’s reckless presentation and invite a reputable historian to present a more even-handed view of the evidence.” He allied himself with a hate-filled nut who refers to me as “Me So Michelle.” Later, he creepily monitored me while I was traveling. He distorted my writing so grossly that even his own readers tired of it. He trolled around on some fake Flickr site and linked to a photo he falsely asserted was of me, without verifying it, in order to make a nonsensical point about my supposed hypocrisy–a blog item which was picked up several hours later by Wonkette after a “tipster” e-mailed the story. A reminder of what Muller wrote:

With no further ado, I give you: Michelle Malkin, Spring Break, March 27, 1992. Could that be an all-you-can-drink wristband?

Here, incidentally, is the flickr page where the photo appears. Somebody forwarded it to me a couple of months ago. I chortled. Then I forgot about it — until today, that is, when her vicious hatchet job on a “half-naked” twenty-year-old “skank” brought it to mind.

Mind you: there’s nothing wrong with trips to the beach during college, or all-you-can-drink wristbands, or bikinis.

Just with hypocrisy.

Apologists believe the whole thing was presented as a joke. That would be Nick Denton’s and Ken Layne’s legal defense, no doubt, for maliciously neglecting to pay me the courtesy of verifying the photo with me before illogically accusing me of “hypocrisy,” linking to unhinged UNC professor Eric Muller’s post falsely asserting as fact that it was me, and now disingenuously playing it all off as a parody.

Gawker Media may never acknowledge their errors and apologize, but Professor Muller, who did, probably no longer thinks his post was so funny. Some apologists for Gawker Media believe no harm was done since eeeeeeh-veryone knew the photos were fake. Yeah? Go look at Jossip, which initially ran the Wonkette item as true hours after I answered the smear on this blog (although the amended Jossip post states its item ran “like four minutes” after I responded to Wonkette on my blog, Bloglines shows that Jossip posted its item nearly seven hours after my post went up). Countless more took their cue from the Wonkette headline calling me an “ignorant slut” and the Gawker headline “Michelle Malkin gone wild”–no question mark, no qualifiers. I won’t post all the abusive e-mails from readers of those sites who took their posts as straight, not parody.

There is a time to be tolerant and there is a time to draw lines. If you don’t draw those lines, bullies will be emboldened. The smug Gawker smear machine is all about pushing those boundaries with the expectation that no one will push back. They project their own cynicism, recklessness with facts, intellectual laziness, and bad faith on everyone else.

But outside of Manhattan and Los Angeles, not all of us think blogging is a for-profit enterprise founded solely to tear people down with gossip, rumor-mongering, and damaging lies disguised as “satire.” Funny how some of the loudest voices decrying the lack of civility in the blogosphere are the biggest promoters of the bottom-feeders and debasers at Gawker Media.

That is not what my blogs are about. That is not what I am about.

Since mm.com came into existence, I’ve been attacked regularly as a whore and a c**t and a puppet and a dupe and a sellout, etc. etc. etc. It comes with the territory–particularly when you happen to be a woman, a minority, and a conservative. The extensive arguments and blog posts and columns and books I’ve written are reduced to bumper-sticker putdowns by critics and their fellow travelers who couldn’t be bothered to actually read what I’ve written day in and day out for the last two years on the blog and the past 14 years in my books and columns. I poked fun at this pathology in my last book. I think what drives a lot of the haters crazy is that despite their ceaseless sniping, they can’t shut me up.

So, I’ll be back here the next day and the next cheerfully doing what I do. And the haters will be back in their pigpens doing what they do.

The wonderful thing about the Internet is that there is room for both. The wonderful thing about this country is that you are free to choose.

See you in the morning. Thanks for your continued readership!

***

Funny comments over at Tim Blair’s.

Chris Muir smiles.

A reader sends a WSJ profile of Gawker Media smear machine founder Nick Denton:

Names to Know
A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
December 29, 2004 11:02 a.m.

Online Journal editors have highlighted 15 people to watch in 2005 — men and women who are set to shape the course of business, politics and world affairs in the next year…

Nick Denton, online publisher

The 2004 election may have made stars out of once-obscure online commentators, and larger sites have dabbled in blogs as well. Mr. Denton is looking to prove that blogging can be a business, building a small but growing galaxy of publications. Mr. Denton, publisher of the Wonkette political gossip blog and others, has become the poster boy for blog start-ups, snagging big-name advertisers with help from his highly targeted audiences. Altogether, his eight blogs, which include Gawker (Manhattan gossip) and Gizmodo (gadgets), pull in a total of more than 29 million page views monthly. Mr. Denton’s next challenge will be to sustain Wonkette in the absence of election news while forging ahead at his other blogs and perhaps founding a new “it” site. Mr. Denton has also tried to assume a leading role, recently supporting calls for blog ethics standards and launching a service, called Kinja, to make it easier for readers to keep up with their favorite blogs.

He supports “calls for blog ethics standards?”

Now that’s funny.

***
Previous:

The Gawker smear machine
Malkin Derangement Syndrome
Do you think this is funny?

***update 9/30 6:25pm…I have just heard from the student whose pictures were stolen from Webshots by the creator of the bogus Flickr site. She is Ashley Herzog of Ohio University (not Oberlin, my alma mater, as the bogus Flickr site creator misled people into believing with fake captions). She has made note of the theft of her photos on the fake Flickr site and is contemplating legal action against the creator of the Flickr site who smeared both of us. Good for her.

FYI, she writes: “I looked at the fake flickr page. Nearly all of the pictures were stolen from my Webshots account, username Ashley11485. In the picture of the four girls in formal dresses, I also recognize a girl I went to high school with, Megan del Corral (she’s on the far right)…The girl in the formal dress picture (who is supposedly you), is Ohio State student Meredith Chan.”***

I have had a nice afternoon with my family. I was not going to post on the lying hate-mongers again, but they will not stop. If they think I am going to shut up about their continued deranged smear job, think again.

I sent this e-mail to the Wonkette editors at 8:13am Eastern:

From: Michelle Malkin
Mailed-By: gmail.com
Reply-To: writemalkin@gmail.com
To: tips@wonkette.com
Date: Sep 29, 2006 8:13 AM
Subject: It’s a photoshop, you idiots

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006012.htm

Hours after my post noting that the photo was fake was published, Wonkette’s sister site, Gawker , went ahead and published this:

I was working at NBC News in Washington, D.C., in March 1992, but the facts and the truth simply do not matter to these hate-mongers.

At 1:24pm Eastern, I sent the editors of Gawker this e-mail with the forwarded message I sent to Wonkette:

From: Michelle Malkin

Mailed-By: gmail.com
Reply-To: writemalkin@gmail.com
To: tips@gawker.com
Date: Sep 29, 2006 1:24 PM
Subject: Fwd: It’s a photoshop, you idiots

My post went up at 8:11am:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006012.htm

I sent this to Wonkette at 8:13am this morning…

Instead of a correction and apology, the Gawker editors insulted me some more:

Oh, it gets better.

Instead of issuing a correction and apology, Ken Layne at Wonkette suggests that I am lying about the fake photo:

I have informed Layne the photo is fake. Not only has he not issued a correction or apology, he is maliciously accusing me of lying. And notice that the Nick Denton smear machine can’t get its story straight. The Gawker editors say “Yes, of course, it’s fake!” The Wonkette editors scoff: “The story so far: Malkin is apparently claiming the all-but-naked picture of her is somehow “photoshopped,” whatever that means. Sure it is, Michelle, sure it is.”

Which is it?

Nick Denton, perhaps too busy IM’ing insults with Ken Layne, has not responded to my e-mail requesting a correction and apology.

Meanwhile UNC professor Eric Muller has issued an apology:

UPDATE, 3:00 p.m.: It appears that I was mistaken when I linked to the picture on flickr below, which I believed to be a picture of Michelle Malkin. I regret my error, and I apologize to Michelle Malkin for it. She has asked that I leave the post up — indeed, she has reprinted it — and so I will do as she wishes.

This doesn’t resolve the issue of whether Muller posted or e-mailed anything related to his false post from government-subsidized UNC computers, but it is a start.

***

Ace thinks I should sue. Any thoughts?

***

My good friend Ed Morrissey has ‘fessed up and revealed the true identitiy of the woman in the bikini:

LOL. Thanks for the laugh, Ed.

***

Update: Reader BruinEric has discovered where some of the original photos and captions that were posted onto the fake Flickr site came from–a site called Webshots. The blonde girl in the picture was not the forger. She is a victim, too:

Her real caption:

Here was the fake one:

Another bogus labeled photo from the Flickr site was photoshopped with a “3/27/92″ timestamp:

The real photo at the Webshots page is here.

Reader K. writes:

The photos are probably in violation of the Flickr terms of use agreement users are supposed to abide by – check out http://flickr.com/terms.gne – and have at ‘em. I’ve had success going a similar route with a whazoo-aperture posting a picture of me in a discussion forum that was hosted on photobucket – had the guy’s accounts nuked every time he posted the stolen picture of me.

***

Gotta love those tolerant lib commenters at Gawker:

The Wonkette editors continue to dig in and show their malice:

Reader David writes:

Michelle, trust me, they have talked to their lawyers, who told them (accurately) that parody is not actionable as libel. So now they are treating this as if it was a parody all along, which it was not.

Whatever you say, they will say something more outrageous now, as their tactic is to blend the original possible li[bel] into subsequent parody. That is why the fake photo is now in front of a relocation camp. Sick, lowlife parody, but also obvious parody.

John Hinderaker at Power Line writes:

The weirdest aspect of this latest liberal outrage is that a goofball law professor at the University of North Carolina–which is generally, I think, a reasonably well regarded institution–jumped on the bandwagon and, in all seriousness, accused Michelle of “hypocrisy” for trying to uphold normal standards of behavior despite having been photographed in a bikini in 1992. Apart from the fact that this guy 1) needs to get out more, and 2) needs to take a class in perspective so he’ll notice the proper relationship between heads and bodies, he also 3) should be fired because any law professor is expected to understand the concept of a non sequitur.

Increasingly, a basic equation is coming to dominate American politics: Liberal = hater.

So true.

Reader Marcia:

Let’s say the picture was real. How does that prove any sort of hypocrisy on your part?

You write a column denouncing Charlotte Church’s turning to raunchy dress and behavior (something every teen pop star seems to feel the need to do) with added Catholic bashing (not original either; see Sinead O’Connor circa 1987).

And Wonkette and this law prof say: “Gotcha!! How dare you decry the slutification of teen pop stars when you yourself once wore a bikini??!!”

Huh?

***

Previous:

Malkin Derangement Syndrome

***

Update:

10/10/06: A personal aside

The idiots are so blinded by hate they can’t see a two-bit Photoshop from some hater’s bogus Flickr site? And they couldn’t bother to ask me before attempting to embarrass me and calling me a slut?

You embarrass yourselves.

Rather than demand that they take their lying lies down, I am asking that they leave their smears up for all the world to see.

***

I am also filing a complaint with UNC School of Law Professor Muller’s employer. Here’s the dean’s contact information. This has gone too far.

Wonkette guest editor Ken Layne (e-mail ken.layne@gmail) is responsible for posting the Wonkette item, which I’m sure he’ll point out is more carefully worded than Professor Muller’s. Credit Gawker for having more legal sense than a UNC law professor, at least. Note Layne’s snarky comment in the comment thread:

That’s the Gawker idea of “reporting,” you see.

Here’s another dumb photoshop of me on the same bogus Flickr site that both Wonkette and Muller linked to:

Even Reuters could do better than that (notice that it appears to be the same face photo as the one used in the bikini shot).

Oh, and just a reminder of Gawker’s terms of use policy for commenters, which still seems not to apply to its own employees:

Comments Terms of Use

The comments sections on GM Sites are accessible to users by invitation only (such invitations coming either from Gawker Media editors directly or by referral from existing comment users). GM’s comment user registration system has been designed so that, if the user so chooses, they can remain completely anonymous, even to us.

In order to make our comments useful and interesting, the following guidelines have been established for comment users:

* Do not post threatening, harassing, defamatory, or libelous material.
* Do not intentionally make false or misleading statements.
* Do not offer to sell or buy any product or service.
* Do not post material that infringes copyright.
* Do not post information that you know to be confidential or sensitive or otherwise in breach of the law.
* Keep all comments relevant to the particular GM Site where the comment is being posted.
* Gawker Media will not accept responsibility for information posted in the Comments.

***

Reader J. e-mails:

In your first post this morning you say: “…they post a picture of a woman in a bikini that they claim is me (I wish I looked that good in a bikini):…”

I respectfully beg to differ, I bet you look absolutely stunning in a bikini.

Well, thanks for cheering me up.

Reader Bill:

The young woman in the photo looks to be pushing 5′ 8″ – 10″. While your razor whit certainly puts you in the big leagues, I suspect you fall a little short of 5′ 8″.

I appreciate you telling them to leave the photo up though. I personally never stop people from making jackasses of themselves, I simply enjoy watching them.

Have a great day.

I swear I am 5′ 1 1/2.” 5′ 4 1/2″ with these on.

Jason at Texas Rainmaker e-mails:

Nice to see you haven’t aged in 14 years.

Ha.

***

I am trying to find out who set up the bogus Flickr site. This picture may hold a clue:

If you know who the woman is on the right, please e-mail me. The caption is a lie. I recognize the setting. It was not taken “out west.” It was taken at CPAC in Washington, D.C. earlier this year. See:

***

More e-mails:

From reader J.

Dean Boger,

It is my sincere regret to inform you that I wish to pull my application packet from the UNC School of Law, due in large part to the behavior of Professor Eric Muller. The packet was mailed on 25 September, in hopes that it would arrive by your 1 October opening of admissions date. While I understand Professor Muller’s online activities are not endorsed by UNC, his crude and cruel remarks –targeted at columnist and blogger Michelle Malkin– reveal a certain classlessness that I would prefer not to be exposed to during my studies.

From Steve:

My eye has been honed by decades of girl-watching and my professional opinion on this bikini girl is that:

1) Her head is too small for her body.

2) Her body is too fleshy to be mistaken for you. You are a skinny little bone. Bikni Girl has chowed down a few extra pork chops.

3) That’s one ugly bikini.

Anyway, it’s an insult that they are passing off as you a girl who hasn’t skipped any desserts. The only way to put this controversy to rest is for you to post your own photo of yourself in a bikini, circa 1992, so that we, your loyal legion of fans, can compare and contrast the Real Michelle and the Bogus Michelle, point out all the discrepancies between the two, and demonstrate the superiority of Our Michelle to Their Michelle. It’s the only way to be sure. Accept No Substitutes!

In fact, to stop this kind of lefty outrage in the future, we probably should have bikini shots on file for all conservative commentators such as yourself, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Page Hopkins, et cetera, so that we conservative males can instantly rebut small-minded slurs against the honor of our womenfolk. No need to thank us. We’re happy to do it as a favor to you.

Uh, no thanks!

Reader Scott:

I graduated from UNC back in 1980. At the time it was still considered a haven for hippies and liberal loonies. But those people would be considered downright conservative by today’s standards. I am ashamed of what that University has become. It is the oldest state-funded University in the country with a long tradition of academic excellence. Yet now, like so many schools around the country, it is now a breeding ground for liberal idiots.

Pay no attention to these people Michelle, they are insignificant, microcephalic cretins.

And even if that were you in the photograph, you would have been in your 20’s and it is hardly a risque photo. What is their point? Have they never seen a woman in a bikini before? The louder they cry the more it appears that they are threatened by you. They lash out at you because deep down they are seething is self-loathing.

Take care and keep the articles coming!

Stephen C.:

You would think a law professor would have a better idea of what is and is not appropriate. Just goes to show how far people of that ilk will sink.

Oh, and with regards to that bikini photo: Muller’s confusion is understandable – to them, all Asians look alike anyway, right?

La Shawn Barber: Liberal Bloggers Fall For Michelle Malkin Fauxtograph

Charles Johnson shares one of his haters’ Photoshops in “Inept Photoshop Phriday.”

Regarding the bikini, reader Tina writes:

I have that same bathingsuit! And I bought it about a year and a half [ago] at Target. Couldn’t possibly be from 1992.

Here’s Tina’s top:

Yup, and for the record (sorry to disappoint the gentlemen), I haven’t worn a bikini since I had my two kids.

Blogger Void Where Prohibited:

Just when you think the moonbats have gone as far as they can go. If that’s Michelle in that picture than I’m a Wookie. You ever seen someone 5′1″ stand next to a fridge?? They usually have to stand on tip toes to look in the freezer.

When you have to make up stuff to attack someone you are simply admitting that you’ve got nothing.

***

Update:

10/01/06 – A personal aside
9/29/06 The Gawker smear machine

This makes three bloggers writing for Time now: Marshall, Wonkette, and of course St. Andrew.

St. Andrew being the “conservative.”

Remember when WaPo hired Ben Domenech and the left wet its pants for days over the fact that they hadn’t hired a left-wing blogger to balance him out? When does Time sign Captain Ed or Josh Trevino to balance out Marshall?

When pigs fly.

Pat yourselves on the backs, you tolerant liberal bastards.

***

This is hardly
the first
time
liberals
have
made Asian whore ping-pong ball jokes about me.

But Wonkette has now mainstreamed it. And I’m sick of it. Are you proud of yourselves? Do you get a bonus from Nick Denton for scraping the bottom of the barrel?

***

The writer at Wonkette responsible for sliming me is Alex Pareene, who posted the supposed instant message conversation between himself and an “operative.” Here is his blog.

Here’s a bit about him from a recent profile, in which he is effusively praised by his hip, edgy bosses:

“I’m not nearly as good of a writer as Ana Marie Cox, so we’re just going to have to live with that,” he said. “But I think what catches people’s attention is that I’m a 20-year-old who writes like an old man. I have a sort of frame of reference that’s about 50 years behind the times. I basically have encyclopedic knowledge about very arcane information. And also, I’m very effective at cursing.”

Gawker’s former managing editor Choire Sicha discovered Pareene in the spring of 2004 when Gawker asked their readers to suggest what kind of skits Paris Hilton should be in when she hosted “Saturday Night Live.” Both Gawker and Wonkette are owned by Gawker Media.

“I randomly sent them off a suggestion, and Choire Sicha, their managing editor, wrote me back and said, ‘You’re really funny. Are you a writer? Should I have heard of you? Let’s find a way to use you,’ ” Pareene said. “I was originally sort of a guest editor on Gawker.com. There were two weeks in the summer when they were between editors so they brought me in to fill in.”

Sicha said he has never met Pareene in person, but thinks Pareene’s talent is undeniable.

“He’s definitely one of the brightest comic talents I’ve ever come across,” Sicha said. “What he’s got is wiles — preternaturally, for someone his age. He’s creepy-talented, really — kind of spooky. Maybe he’s a hoax perpetrated by a 40-year-old housewife.”

The summer after he dropped out, Pareene began a stint as a guest editor for Gawker. But this time, he would actually get paid for his blogging — something he considers fairly remarkable.

“I still can’t believe I’m getting paid for it,” he said with a chuckle.

Gawker’s current managing editor, Lockhart Steele, said Pareene’s use of language and the way he “cocks his eyebrow at the media” caught his attention.

“We’re looking for someone who can have a little fun at the media’s expense,” Steele said. “Different blogs are enjoyable for different reasons and Alex has his own personality as a writer. You know when you like it, and when you go back to it, you ask yourself what brings you back and for Alex, I think it’s his quality of writing.”

***

Greg Tinti on double standards.

Dan Riehl spots underlying irony.

***

From the Gawker Media “Terms of Use” page, which shows that commenters are held to a higher standard than Gawker Media sites’ editors and racist smear merchants:

Comments Terms of Use

The comments sections on GM Sites are accessible to users by invitation only (such invitations coming either from Gawker Media editors directly or by referral from existing comment users). GM’s comment user registration system has been designed so that, if the user so chooses, they can remain completely anonymous, even to us.

In order to make our comments useful and interesting, the following guidelines have been established for comment users:

* Do not post abusive, obscene, threatening, harassing, defamatory, libelous, offensive or sexually explicit material.

The oh-so-compassionate Left is snickering at the possibility that Floyd Allen may have been responsible for the crimes with which Claude Allen has now been charged.

See here, here, here, here, and here.

I don’t see why this is funny. If it turns out that Claude Allen, a father of three who reportedly has bailed out his troubled twin brother before, tried to protect Floyd Allen and ruined his career out of familial love, that is an extraordinary thing.

Tell me again why this is funny.

***

Here’s an NPR interview with Michele Norris and Washington Post reporter Michael Fletcher, which contains the following exchange:

Norris: We should note something, Michael. Apparently Claude Allen has a twin brother?

Fletcher: Yes, he does. He has an identical twin brother who even close friends can’t tell them apart when they see them. And people have seen him and close friends say that Mr. Allen has indicated to them that maybe his brother holds the key to this entire puzzling affair.

***

Previous:

He has a twin brother?
The next Beltway brouhaha

Successful applicants will get “hands-on experience.”

No kidding.

Hat tip: Reader Todd K.

***

On the hunt in Quincy, MA, too.

***
Bloggers having a good laugh:

Scott Sala at Urban Elephants
GOP and the City
Chris Christner: It’s another sign of a booming economy
Jason Smith
Ian Schwartz
Right up Wonkette’s alley

Instapundit has photos of the pro-Denmark gathering at the Danish Embassy convened by journalist Christopher Hitchens this afternoon. Looks like there was a great turnout.

Lovely photo spread over at Vital Perspective.

Blogger Greg Tinti was also there with camera and reports:

The mood of the event was unbelievably positive and all the signs and banners were nothing but respectful. People came to express their solidarity with Denmark and support free speech and that’s exactly what they did. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and met some great people too.

Greg estimates there were about 200 people and a lot of media. A few of his photos:

Hitchens addressed the rally

Made with LEGOs!

Bill Kristol was there.

Lots more.

Wonkette’s David Lat has more pics…and requisite snark.

Marc G. posts a photo of Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan at Flickr.

***

Related:

A letter from Denmark

Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank turned up on an MSNBC show to talk about the Cheney accidental hunting trip shooting wearing this costume:

Download and watch the video (Windows Media .wmv file).

Hat tip: Tom Elia at The New Editor, who rightly raises his eyebrow at Milbank’s display of less-than-objective journalism.

What does the Post have to say about Milbank’s stunt?

Write the ombudsman: ombudsman@washpost.com.

***

Now, imagine the MSM uproar if a reporter showed up for an interview with this bumper sticker (via Expose the Left) on his/her chest:

The Smoking Gun has the official Texas Parks and Wildlife Department report on the incident.

More reaction:

Scott E. writes, “I wondered why Keith Olberman was interviewing a parking lot
attendant. Turns out Dana Milbank had just finished up and forgot
to change. A clown indeed.”

Newsbusters’ Dave Pierre, “Think back to 1998. Imagine a female newspaper reporter (not an opinion columnist, but a reporter, mind you) showing up for a television interview dressed in a beret and looking like Monica Lewinsky. Or a male columnist wearing a Clinton wig and holding a cigar.”

ABP jibes, “I had no idea they were making tin foil hats in orange these days.”

Ed Morrissey:

No, this isn’t a tryout for America’s Worst-Dressed Nerds; it’s Milbank trying to be funny and only succeeding at being funny-looking. Since when do serious journalists pull stunts like this? Heck, most bloggers I know wouldn’t be dumb enough to dress like this on national TV even as a joke, not if they wanted to maintain any credibility.

***

Update: The new guys at Wonkette make a Capitol Fashion Police arrest.

***

Flashback: John Miller on Milbank’s opinion journalism.

Flashback: Oh, That Liberal Media on Milbank’s whining.

Flashback: MRC on Milbank and “the facts”

Flashback: Professor Bainbridge on Milbank’s tripe.

I think you will get a kick out of my latest, Unhinged-themed column: “Who are you calling angry?”

Intro:

Janeane Garofalo, left-wing actress-turned-Air America radio host, is a miserable woman. Last week before the holidays, she turned up on cable TV. No, not to count her blessings but to rant against conservative journalist Bob Novak, author Ann Coulter, and the Fox News Channel. She didn’t have anything better to do for Thanksgiving?

Accessorized by a permanent scowl (hard to believe she was once considered a comedienne), Ms. Garofalo accused conservatives of having “an anger management problem. Without a trace of irony, the frowning Garofalo griped about “right-wing partisan hacks who are always on the verge of punching somebody or always behave as if they’ve just been cut off in traffic.”

This, dear readers, is a classic case of liberal projection. Like CNN executive Jonathan Klein, who derided Fox’s audience as full of “angry white men, and those men tend to be rabid,” and liberal comedian Bill Maher, who also railed that “Republicans need anger management” and are possessed with a “vein-popping, gut-churning rage that consumes the entire right wing,” Ms. Garafolo crossly blames the Right while denying the pathological wrath and fury that characterize the unhinged Left.

Who are you calling angry, Ms. Garofalo? You want political road rage? Let’s start with Al. Take your pick: Sharpton. Gore. Franken. Yearrghh!

Now, open your eyes:

It isn’t out-of-control conservatives tossing Molotov cocktails at police officers in San Francisco, burning American soldiers in effigy, and smearing blood and feces on the walls and windows of military recruitment centers across the country to protest on behalf of peace.

It isn’t rage-blinded conservative professors who embrace fragging (the murder of American soldiers by their fellow soldiers on the battlefield) as a legitimate anti-war tactic.

It isn’t vengeful conservatives torching SUVs, condo developments, and research facilities, and targeting biotech and pharmaceutical company employees and their families to protest on behalf of the environment.

It wasn’t mad conservatives sporting “F*** Bush” license plates, punching cardboard cutouts of the president, and vowing to secede after losing the 2004 presidential election…

Read the rest here.

Along similar lines, check out psychiatrist/blogger Dr. Sanity’s excellent post on the Dems’ Wonderful World of Denial and Lorie Byrd’s trenchant reality check.

***
Background:

Video of Garofalo projecting at The Political Teen.
Brian Maloney on “Garofollies.”
Newsbusters’ Brad Wilmouth has complete transcription.

Unfortunately, while Americans from all walks of life have been busy raising money, the unhinged Left keeps slinging bull.

Brian Maloney at The Radio Equalizer, my indefatigable blog investigative partner, spotlights the hurricane-induced insanity of Air America Radio hosts Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes, who really have bigger things to worry about. (Audio of Rhodes here.) Jim Hoft comments.

This nutball refuses to support Katrina victims because of his anti-conservative hang-ups. (Hat tip: Erick at Red State.)

This group is totally bonkers.

Arthur Chrenkoff compiles a list of left-wingers using the disaster to stoke Bush hatred and eco-zealotry.

Patrick Ruffini documents a “hurricane of hatred.” Alenda Lux has a reality check.

Kevin Halpern has more on the Bush-bashers and adds:

One more thing on anti-war mom Sheehan. She is leaving Texas and taking her protest on the road with a bus caravan to Washington. I hope she runs out of the gas she is wasting.

Politburo Diktat documents Left vs. Right bloggers on Katrina. So does Rick Moran.

And via Radioblogger Duane Patterson, Hugh Hewitt’s producer, here’s the anti-Bush meltdown of CNN buffoon Jack Cafferty. More from Brent Baker at Newsbusters.

Cafferty is fuming because Bush did not drop sandwiches into the waterlogged, chaos-racked Superdome. I kid you not.

The Anchoress takes stock of the political and physical landscape 100 hours after stormfall. Read the whole thing.

***

While the above examples of Bush Derangement Sydrome are beyond the pale, there are serious criticisms to be made of President Bush–and government officials from both parties and all levels, for that matter.

The Bush Administration has come under particularly fierce criticism for its decision to scrimp on anti-flood measures in New Orleans–a decision some claim was prompted by budgetary pressures caused by the war in Iraq:

Federal flood control spending for southeastern Louisiana has been chopped from $69 million in 2001 to $36.5 million in 2005, according to budget documents. Federal hurricane protection for the Lake Pontchartrain vicinity in the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget dropped from $14.25 million in 2002 to $5.7 million this year. Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu requested $27 million this year.

Both the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper and a local business magazine reported that the effects of the budget cuts at the Army Corps of Engineers were severe.

In 2004, the Corps essentially stopped major work on the now-breached levee system that had protected New Orleans from flooding. It was the first such stoppage in 37 years, the Times-Picayune reported.

“It appears that the money has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that’s the price we pay,” Jefferson Parish emergency management chief Walter Maestri told the newspaper. “Nobody locally is happy that the levees can’t be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us.”

Naturally, Bush’s critics want to make this into a major issue in the run-up to the 2006 mid-term elections next fall. But the reality is more complex than the Bush Blamers will admit. They want you to believe that inadequate flood-control protections became a problem only after Bush took office. However, the New Orleans Times-Picayune has written numerous articles over the years describing the threat posed by inadequate funding for flood-control measures. Many of these articles, such as the one authored by Pam Louwagie on June 1, 1999 (see extended entry), appeared well before President Bush took office.

The Times-Picayune’s articles make clear that throughout much of the 1990s, officials in Louisiana couldn’t come up with state money needed to match federal funds. The resignation of Rep. Bob Livingston in December 1998 didn’t help. (Livingston was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee; federal funding for flood control projects was one of his pet projects.) Nor did environmental laws, such as the Migratory Bird Act of 1918. (Construction on a hurricane protection levee in St. Charles Parish was halted for months because a great egret nesting area sat in the levee’s path.)

One of Bush’s critics cited a February 16, 2004, New Orleans CityBusiness article. That critic, however, chose not to excerpt these two sentences:

The Corps’ New Orleans district in 2003 spent about $409 million on construction contracts, dredging and maintenance for the state’s waterways, real estate purchases, private sector design contracts and in-house expenditures, according to the Corps. That more than doubles the $200 million the district spent in 1991.

Presumably those sentences were omitted because they do not support the notion that the Army Corps of Engineeers in New Orleans was starved for funds.

And don’t expect Bush’s critics to mention that the main levee that was breached earlier this week had recently been upgraded. Per the New York Times:

No one expected that weak spot to be on a canal that, if anything, had received more attention and shoring up than many other spots in the region. It did not have broad berms, but it did have strong concrete walls.

Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans, said that was particularly surprising because the break was “along a section that was just upgraded.”

“It did not have an earthen levee,” Dr. Penland said. “It had a vertical concrete wall several feel thick.”

The Chicago Tribune makes the same point in even stronger terms:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday that a lack of funding for hurricane-protection projects around New Orleans did not contribute to the disastrous flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina.

In a telephone interview with reporters, corps officials said that although portions of the flood-protection levees remain incomplete, the levees near Lake Pontchartrain that gave way–inundating much of the city–were completed and in good condition before the hurricane.

However, they noted that the levees were designed for a Category 3 hurricane and couldn’t handle the ferocious winds and raging waters from Hurricane Katrina, which was a Category 4 storm when it hit the coastline. The decision to build levees for a Category 3 hurricane was made decades ago based on a cost-benefit analysis.

Read the whole thing.

It’s worth noting, too, that Democrats not from Louisiana have not always been enthusiastic supporters of New Orleans’ anti-flood efforts. The Clinton Administration held up a major New Orleans levee construction project in 1995, according to a June 23, 1995, article in the Times-Picayune (via EU Rota):

A hurricane project, approved and financed since 1965, to protect more than 140,000 West Bank residents east of the Harvey Canal is in jeopardy.

The Clinton administration is holding back a Corps of Engineers report recommending that the $120 million project proceed. Unless that report is forwarded to the Office of Management and Budget, Congress cannot authorize money for the project, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson’s office said Thursday.

Without the improvements – a flood gate in the Harvey Canal and raised levees along the Intracoastal Waterway – a tidal surge produced by a hurricane “could result in the catastrophic loss of life and property damage,” corps officials reported. In a worst-case-scenario storm, 82 percent of the buildings east of the Harvey Canal, from The Point in Algiers to the Algiers Lock in the Industrial Canal, would be flooded, causing $2.2 billion in damage, according to corps estimates.

Gerald Spohrer, executive director of the West Jefferson Levee District, is seething. “The bureaucracy in Washington has been given a specific instruction and the way they are dealing with it is to do nothing,” he said.

If financed by Congress, the project could be started early next year, Spohrer said. Work on the Westwego to Harvey Canal Project hurricane levee, costing $90 million, is 30 percent complete, and plans are about to be drawn for the $20 million Lake Cataouatche Project, which would protect the area west of Westwego….

That project is not the only West Bank flood-control work in jeopardy. Federal budget cuts also may prevent construction of levees outside the main hurricane levee system that would protect the Jean Lafitte-Barataria area. Those levees, to cost $5 million, would not protect the area from severe hurricane surges, but could offer protection against a storm such as Hurricane Juan, which while weak, had heavy rains that caused massive flooding.

EU Rota has more examples of Clinton-era obstructionism here.
(Maybe this explains why Clinton took the high road yesterday and refused to trash Bush on CNN.)

It wasn’t only in Louisiana that the Clinton Administration opposed flood control measures. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Clinton vetoed legislation designed to prevent flooding on the Missouri River. According to Michael Catanzaro, the veto stemmed from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision ordering the Army Corps of Engineers to manipulate the Missouri’s water levels to save three endangered species. The veto, a significant campaign issue, was a factor in Bush’s narrow win over Al Gore in Missouri.

If the Missouri river floods, will that be Bush’s fault too?

***

Related:

Pattishub: “This too is Bush’s fault”

Captain Ed:

The power of Category 5 hurricanes have been known since Galveston in 1900, and certainly snce Hurricane Camille in 1969. Given New Orleans’ fairly unique situation, the result of a direct Cat-4 or -5 hit has always been presumed to carry the inevitable result of levee failure. If we want to play the blame-Bush game, we can also play the blame-Nixon, blame-Ford, blame-Carter, blame-Reagan, blame-Bush 41, and blame-Clinton game, especially after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

EYE OF THE STORM; LEVEE-BUILDING DELAYS LEAVE WEST BANK VUNERABLE

By Pam Louwagie, West Bank bureau
New Orleans Times Picayune

June 1, 1999

For a while, it seemed to the hundreds of people frantically sandbagging along the Harvey Canal that they were trying to stop Niagara Falls.

Workers trained in hurricane emergencies, volunteers and even prisoners hurriedly hoisted bags through the night last Sept. 11, rushing to stop the ocean from flowing over makeshift levees and into West Bank houses.

It wasn’t even a full-fledged hurricane they were battling: It was Tropical Storm Frances, a weather system centered at least 350 miles away with winds that mostly stayed below 55 miles per hour.

Few knew that it came within six inches of destroying much of the West Bank.

If storm surges had risen six inches more, Jefferson Parish officials said, the water would have turned to gushing streams that couldn’t have been held back. Much of the West Bank — especially east of the Harvey Canal — would have been deluged, sinking entire neighborhoods such as the 800 palatial homes in Stonebridge under nine feet of water. Officials estimate 250,000 people in West Jefferson and Algiers, 70,000 structures and $6 billion in property were threatened.

“We couldn’t surmount that,” West Jefferson Levee District executive director Gerald Spohrer said, sighing. “The entire Gulf of Mexico was rising on us.”

The West Bank is the most highly populated area in metropolitan New Orleans that still lacks substantial hurricane protection. While a major hurricane certainly would devastate West Jefferson and the rest of the area, the West Bank’s levees aren’t even high enough to shield the area — or its major evacuation route — from a tropical storm like Frances.

It’s a problem that isn’t surprising to those who have followed the politics behind building levees. It’s still years away from fixing, though. While one portion of the project is under construction and a commitment for federal money was authorized three years ago, it requires the state to ante up $49.5 million in matching money to complete the entire project.

If that money doesn’t come, it could slow or eventually stop the levee building altogether.

In recent years, however, there was no major push for state money because lawmakers simply didn’t realize the urgency to build levees — until Frances, officials say. This year legislators are confronted with the issue, and they know that. Even if the money starts coming in right away, construction would run five or six years before all West Bank neighborhoods are protected.

Meanwhile, experts are expecting one of the busiest cycles for hurricanes in years.

“We’re playing Russian Roulette with a lot of people’s lives over here,” former levee district head Ron Besson said. “Six more inches and it would have been all over with. All over with.”

HIDDEN STRENGTH

While the force of Hurricane Betsy or Camille would wreak havoc on the entire metropolitan area, storms like Frances pose a different danger. It isn’t the intensity that’s troubling, it’s the endurance.

Much as Hurricane Juan did in 1985, Frances lingered in the Gulf of Mexico for days, its grand spans of winds nudging ocean waves through the marshes and swamps near Barataria Bay and up through open waterways toward suburbia.

Along the industrious Harvey Canal, water began to top short makeshift levees that businesses had built over the years.

“I wouldn’t even call them levees,” district board president Harry “Chip” Cahill III said. “It’s just a system of elevations, some less successful than others.”

So when water began to find every gap and dip in the system, it was time to call out the emergency troops. All told, more than 70 parish employees and 100 prisoners brought in from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel stacked sandbags along the canal, while another 20 volunteers filled bags for the parish elsewhere.

“We were ready to pull the triggers, ready to order massive evacuations of subdivisions,” Jefferson Parish Emergency Management director Walter Maestri said. “Sometimes it comes down to life versus property.”

And while it was a lot of life and property, some residents, such as those along Lake Frances Drive in Stonebridge, didn’t know how close their street name came to reality.

“It’s scary,” resident Russ Bailey said. “If it comes up the right way, we’re in trouble.”

Many breathed a sigh of relief after Frances dissipated. But the danger exposed during Juan and Frances has not gone away.

Hurricane expert William Gray, of Colorodo State University, predicts a 92 percent chance that at least one named storm will make landfall this year somewhere between the Florida panhandle and Galveston, Texas. There’s a 72 percent chance that a Category 1 or 2 hurricane will hit in the same area; a 40 percent chance that a Category 3, 4 or 5 will make landfall in that zone.

Overall, hurricane seasons are likely to be busier the next few years, Gray found. La Nina and other climactic factors lead experts to predict the cycle of intense hurricane years is kicking up again, similar to seasons when hurricanes roared through from the late 1920 to the late 1960s. The past four years — the most active four consecutive years on record — may be a good indication of what’s to come.

BEHIND EVERYONE ELSE

For many New Orleans area parishes, the rush to build hurricane levees began after Hurricane Betsy struck in 1965, killing more than 70, injuring 17,600 and leaving 60,000 homeless. Tales of such massive flooding that families drowned in their attics set everyone on alert.

It was then that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got into the hurricane protection business, helping build levees throughout the New Orleans area to save the below-sea-level bowl from future flooding.

Most area districts have nearly completed their projects.

The east bank of Orleans Parish is about 95 percent protected for a fast-moving Category 3 hurricane, Chief Engineer Stevan Spencer said. Several bridges need replacing but sandbags can do the trick, he said. Orleans is responsible for protecting Algiers, too, and is working with West Jefferson’s levee district to gain protection from Harvey Canal problems.

East Jefferson is about 90 percent complete in protecting up to a Category 3 hurricane, Levee District director Alan Francingues said. Just an Airline Drive gap needs to be addressed, a few gates need replacing and small sections of earthen levees need to be raised a foot or two.

Levees would probably not save the area if a catastrophic hurricane moves in slowly, officials warn, because the storm surge would be too great, and the rainfall would fill up the city.

St. Charles Parish is in more of a precarious position, 30 percent complete with its single levee protecting the east bank from flooding to its north. Its west bank is also unprotected because for years federal officials found there wasn’t enough development there to warrant expensive levees. The project is now stalled because of fights over where to build the levee.

In Jefferson Parish, no major construction began on the West Bank until Congress approved a project to protect the middle third of the West Bank in 1986. While most around the area have met their goal of protection to a Category 3 hurricane, much of the West Bank isn’t even protected to a Category 1.

The West Bank remains the “heart of the need for hurricane protection,” said John Hall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“You have almost the entire West Bank of Jefferson Parish with no hurricane protection,” Jefferson Parish Councilman Donald Jones said. “That is a travesty.”

Levees need to be various heights depending on where they are located, but officials aim to build levees on the West Bank to about 10 1/2 feet for a Category 3 hurricane.

“We’re not protected until everybody is protected,” said Spencer, who lives in Stonebridge. “You’ve gotta put the whole system together, because if you just build one part, water will find a way around it.”

Some say the West Bank didn’t get as much attention after Betsy because it was less populated in 1965, and therefore less of a concern. Census statistics from 1960 show a population of only 75,819 on the West Bank of Jefferson Parish.

Priority was also put on protecting areas directly abutting large bodies of water such as Lake Pontchartrain.

Others blame the decades-long delay on an argument pitting developers and the parish against environmentalists and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over where to build the levee in undeveloped areas. Some wanted to include more wetlands inwide the levee, while others feared that would just cause the wetlands to be destroyed by more development.

Hurricane Juan 20 years later provided the real push. A slow-moving, Category 1, its southerly winds pushed the Gulf onto the West Bank, flooding much of the area and causing $1 billion in damage in Louisiana.

After Juan, there was more of an urgency to settle the debate.

Environmentalists and the Corps compromised, following an existing levee much of the way, shaped in a V crossing the Lafitte-Larose Highway.

Complete protection on the West Bank will come when a project totalling about $294 million is finished.

* Work to protect the middle one-third of the West Bank is almost completed, with levees nearing 10 1/2 feet from Westwego to the Harvey Canal. While the levees are built to protect the area up to a slow-moving Category 3, the area is still in danger of water seeping in on its east or west sides, where protection is not complete.

* The western one-third, called the Lake Cataouatche levee, has some protection for fast moving storms, with old state-built levees ranging in size from 5 1/2 to 14 feet, Spohrer said. While officials have said it may protect for a fast-moving Category 2 storm, levees were almost topped during Tropical Storm Frances. Congress authorized $14.3 million in 1996, Army Corps of Engineers officials said. Work on this portion is expected to begin this fall. Completion would help protect the evacuation route of U.S. 90, parts of which stood under water during Frances.

* The eastern one-third, including Algiers, is considered wholly unprotected. Levees need to be raised along the Intracoastal Waterway and a floodgate needs to be erected in the Harvey Canal to protect tidal surge from flowing up the canal and spilling into neighborhoods east of it. Congress also authorized $126 million, Corps officials said. It requires local matching funds to move forward.

WHO’S TO BLAME?

To those who knew about the tidal surge problem, Frances provided such a scare that Jefferson Parish administrators, councilmen and state legislators have publicly touted West Bank hurricane protection as their number one priority this year.

But it shouldn’t have taken a threat like Frances to get the call for levees rolling, critics say; The levee district could have given the project a push long ago.

“Those people out there are just lacking the ability to get anything done,” Jefferson Parish Councilman Lloyd Giardina said of levee district officials. “They need to bite the bullet and find the money rather than try to get it from a fictitious place. You’ve got to go lobby everybody rather than find somebody else to get it for you.”

Infighting and assertions of wrongdoing have been a part of the levee board politics since it split off from the Lafourche Levee District around 1980.

Besson was removed from his board president job in 1990 after the state inspector general found he wrongly billed taxpayers for meals and hotel rooms for himself and others. He also was criticized for, among other things, allowing the levee board to donate property and services to agencies and for failing to keep board committee meetings open to the public.

Most recently, board member Rita “Pepper” Scheffler has been causing waves, criticizing board members for failing to hold committee meetings and saying administrators are spending too much on computers and other administrative costs.

“We’re a glorified grass-cutting district,” Scheffler said. “There’s a lot of apathy on the board. They rubber-stamp everything the administration wants.”

Some parish council members were so frustrated after Frances that they suggested Jefferson Parish take over the levee districts to see that improvements were made.

“I promise you we would accelerate the process 10 times if we had control,” Giardina said, adding that levee district members should do much more lobbying to find money.

Cahill said he goes to Baton Rouge to lobby at least once a week during the legislative session.

FIGHT FOR MONEY

The West Bank may have a good case for building levees, but officials will have to fight for money — against other projects in the capital budget and possibly against other levee districts looking to upgrade their levees.

Though Congress authorized West Jefferson to complete its levee projects in 1996, the state hasn’t made matching money a priority the past three years because the weather “really didn’t show us the potential dangers we had until the storms last year … showed the seriousness of it,” said Rep. John Alario, D-Westwego.

As of last week, state matching money for the levees was written into the capital outlay bill. Some consider it a major breakthrough, saying it has never been actually written into bill before.

But even if it passes, it doesn’t mean the money will come.

“It’s going to take a great deal of effort from (Jefferson Parish President Tim) Coulon and local business leaders to convince the governor that it’s a much-needed priority,” Alario said. “I think we’re still at the starting stages. We still don’t have the commitments we need to have.”

Alario, who is head of the Ways and Means Committee and a member of the joint committee on capital outlay, is considered a key himself, officials say. Legislators have only about $200 million in capital outlay to dish statewide each year. This year, the levee district and its Department of Transportation and Development sponsor is competing with countless others requesting capital outlay money in a 117-page bill. Major competition includes a $40.4 million request over several years to build a Comite River Diversion Canal in East Baton Rouge Parish and well more than $300 million in classroom and building renovations for various colleges the next few years.

In an attempt to ease the burden on state capital outlay funding, Alario also filed a bill asking Jefferson Parish council members to donate their discretionary funding from gaming revenues. But parish council members say the state and the West Jefferson Levee District have an agreement with the federal government to build the levees, so it’s the state’s sole responsibility to find the cash.

Without state matching money, Louisiana risks losing federal dollars committed to the West Bank levee projects. While Congress approved the project, it has to appropriate funding for it year by year. So far, the federal government has spent about $44.7 million, officials from the Army Corps of Engineers said. The remaining $147 million it has agreed to spend could be cut off if there is no local money to match it, they said.

Some say the levee district should take the issue the issue to the voters. “After they’ve exhausted all avenues, isn’t it their responsibility to get all the facts and figures together and go to the voters?” Besson asked.

The district has the legal power to pass a referendum and collect taxes, but it hasn’t used it. For now, it collects only a 5-mill ad valorem tax that the state constitution has set up for all levee districts.

“That’s something we would only do as a last resort,” Cahill said. “And I don’t know that we’ll need it. This is the first time all the money is written into a bill.”

Legislators agree it’s been a tough fight so far.

“I think the governor and the administration are completely oblivious to the 250,000 people who live on the West Bank, as far as levees go,” Giardina said. “This is one of the most populous areas in the state and we’re not getting any money.”

If the state money comes through this year, it would take until 2018 to finish completely. Beneficial completion would take five to six years.

“If the dollars stretch out, the life of the project will stretch out,” Spohrer said.

And so will the danger.

“The potential problems are not gonna go away for a while, even if the budget’s approved and we’re all congratulating each other,” Maestri said. “For the next 8 to 10 years, everybody’s got to be alerted.”

Darkness is descending on New Orleans, literally and figuratively. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, the N.O. Times-Picayune blog reports that the local children’s hospital is under siege:

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children’s Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

Things are spiraling completely out of control–and contrary to some naive observers, the crimes are not just being committed by people desperate for basic food and sustenance. Earlier, the Times-Picayune blog reported:

Those trapped in the city faced an increasingly lawless environment, as law enforcement agencies found themselves overwhelmed with widespread looting. Looters swarmed the Wal-mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, often bypassing the food and drink section to steal wide-screen TVs, jewelry, bicycles and computers. Watching the sordid display and shaking his head in disgust, one firefighter said of the scene: “It’s a f—- hurricane, what are you do with a basketball goal?”

Police regained control at about 3 p.m., after clearing the store with armed patrol. One shotgun-toting Third District detective described the looting as “ferocious.”

“And it’s going to get worse as the days progress,” he said.

In Uptown, one the few areas that remained dry, a bearded man patrolled Oak Street near the boarded-up Maple Leaf Bar, a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder. The owners of a hardware store sat in folding chairs, pistols at the ready.

Uptown resident Keith Williams started his own security patrol, driving around in his Ford pickup with his newly purchased handgun. Earlier in the day, Williams said he had seen the body of a gunshot victim near the corner of Leonidas and Hickory streets.

“What I want to know is why we don’t have paratroopers with machine guns on every street,” Williams said.

Like-minded Art Depodesta sat on the edge of a picnic table outside Cooter Brown’s Bar, a chrome shotgun at his side loaded with red shells.

“They broke into the Shell station across the street,” he said. “I walked over with my 12-gauge and shot a couple into the air.”

The looters scattered, but soon after, another man appeared outside the bar in a pickup truck armed with a pistol and threatened Depodesta.

“I told him, ‘Listen, I was in the Army and I will blow your ass off,’” Depodesta said. “We’ve got enough trouble with the flood.”

The man sped away.

“You know what sucks,” Depodesta said. “The whole U.S. is looking at this city right now, and this is what they see.”

In the Bywater, a supply store sported spray-painted signs reading “You Loot, I Shoot” and “You Bein Watched.” A man seated nearby with a rifle in his lap suggested it was no idle threat. At the Bywater studio of Dr. Bob, the artist known for handpainted “Be Nice or Leave” signs, a less fanciful sentiment was painted on the wall: “Looters Will Be Shot. Dr. Bob.”

Reminds me very much of the chaos that ensued after the Los Angeles riots, in which Korean grocery store owners were left to fend for themselves and it was up to good Samaritans to try and quell the violence.

Chris Regan at Junkyard Blog reports that the mayor of New Orleans may go ahead and make a bona fide martial law declaration. What’s he waiting for?

***
Video of Wal-Mart looted.

***

9am EDT update: Donald Sensing writes on Louisiana Gov. Blanco’s planned request for federal troops:

Louisiana Gov. Blanco just said live on FNC that she will ask President Bush to send federal troops to conduct law enforcement in New Orleans and environs. It’s hard to see Bush refusing. This step moves the city closer to actual martial law. The president has the authority under Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus when “public Safety may require it.” Historically, suspension of Habeas Corpus has been considered an indicator of martial law, as Abraham Lincoln did in the Civil War.

We’ll have to wait to see what enforcement authority the federal troops will have when they arrive. I am guessing that the units sent will be military police from either or both of the regular Army and the Army Reserve.

And they’re looting in Biloxi, Miss., too:

An AP reporter along the beach in Biloxi, Mississippi, says it “looks like a free-for-all,” as looters come running out of souvenir shops, loaded down with merchandise. He saw two men riding go-carts taken from an amusement park near the beach. Two men were pushing a large plastic garbage can with wheels—so full that it took both of them to drag it down the street.

10am EDT update: I am trying to get an update on the Children’s Hospital situation from Governor Blanco’s office and will report back with any news.

Meantime, Rick Moran’s blog essay on law and order during disasters is good reading: “The compact of civil societies.”

And here’s news of the dire medical crisis facing the region, via the Houston Chronicle:

Nearly 200 medical patients are expected to arrive in Houston today as part of a massive air evacuation from New Orleans’ storm-crippled hospital system.

More than 150 veterans and their families will arrive at Ellington Field and be transported to the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. The Methodist Hospital is getting 20 other patients and Texas Children’s Hospital is getting 17, said Andy Icken, executive vice president of Texas Medical Center.

Federal officials said the evacuations of perhaps 2,500 patients began Tuesday. They are necessary because at least seven hospitals — many surrounded by water — in Orleans Parish were threatened by the loss of power generators and other problems.

One critically ill patient at Louisiana State University’s Charity Hospital, a teenage car accident victim on a ventilator, was being taken by boat to the Louisiana Superdome and is scheduled to fly to Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital by helicopter. The power generator at the New Orleans hospital was running out of fuel.

Likewise, the VA center in New Orleans began evacuating nine ventilator patients when it became clear the backup generator was going to run out of fuel, said Bobbi Gruner, a DeBakey spokeswoman.

Hugh Hewitt calls for media restraint and looking for info:

I would appreciate any pointers to (1)coast guard bloggers, (2)civil engineering blogs that are discussing the levee breaks, and (3)word on whether the elevators in the many high rises in downtown New Orleans have been checked for trapped people.

1050 EDT update: Silflay Hraka notes that it’s not just civilians looting and highlights a female looter who stole a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Because clean carpets are so vital during the worst natural disaster in American history.

Jason Smith: What to do with the looters

11am EDT update: Wonkette highlights disparate Associated Press captions on “finding” vs. “looting” photos and suggests that racism is involved. Lots of other readers are sending me the photos, too, making the same point. There’s one slight problem with the implication that the AP was overtly racist in labeling one of the photos “looting” and the other “finding.” The race of the woman in the “finding” photo is indeterminate. She looks Hispanic or mixed. I agree it’s still a curious editorial choice of words and I’d love to hear AP’s explanation. But seems to me that it’s not as black and white as some people are making it out to be.

La Shawn Barber and her commenters share thoughts on the looting phenomenon.

Looting/finding update: Xrlq spots an even more fundamental error–the photos are from two different news agencies–AP and AFP.