~^~

The Iraq war — indeed, the larger GWOJ (global war against jihadism) — is as much a propaganda war, a war of ideas and “memes,” as it is a shooting war. Paul Josef Goebbels understood the power of propaganda; so too did Tojo, Walter Cronkite, and so does al-Qaeda, of course. Alas, it appears that both the Bush administration and the GOP are completely clueless in this respect.

The Democrats and the elite media, to the extent they are not the same entity, understand perfectly, however.

When CNN broadcast the al-Qaeda propaganda video showing an American soldier being killed by a terrorist sniper, terrorists gloated that our sensationalist media was always willing to help them out by showing their recruiting videos on the nightly news. The media, for reasons of their own which appear more compelling to them than national security, long ago decided to work with America’s enemies; the most charitable conclusion is that they’re so deathly afraid of American military might becoming American imperialism, that they would rather see an America defeated, humbled, and on its knees than triumphant, dominant, and ascendent.

To think that the internationalists in the elite media are cheerleaders for success in Iraq, let alone the larger GWOJ, is naïve; to imagine that the tilt is so subtle that ordinary readers don’t realize it — is downright insulting.

Yet that is exactly what columnist Eric Boehlert, from Media Matters for America, does in “Michelle Malkin fiddles while Baghdad burns.” Boehlert, and many others like him in the drive-by media, criticize sites such as Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces, and Confederate Yankee (from the best of intentions!) They call us — he didn’t mention Big Lizards, but I feel some solidarity with the ones he did — they call us “warbloggers,” who are “chronically incorrect” and uninterested in the truth… unlike the perennially truth-seeking mainstream media. (Hat tip, who else? Michelle Malkin.)

In fact, while I wouldn’t say Boehlert has it exactly backwards — there are many bloggers (even “warbloggers”) who are just as biased (or corrupt) as Mary Mapes and Eason Jordan — the mere fact that there is so much more big political money in the professional media than in the blogosphere itself argues in favor of more honesty within the latter.

For Boehlert is an honourable man; so are they all, all honourable men

In fact, Boehlert himself gives us a perfect example of the deep, underlying, and contemptuous atitude of the elites in the professional media towards the upstarts “who have virtually no serious journalism experience among them.” In his lengthy harangue on his Media Matters blog, he attempts to discredit Michelle Malkin — the bête noire he seems to fear more than the rest of the blogosphere combined — with an off-topic and puzzling slap:

It should be noted that Malkin’s breathless excitement over the AP story nearly matches the enthusiasm she used to spread online smears about the press in the spring of 2005 during the Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy. That’s when Malkin backed the novel conspiracy theory that press reports about how congressional Republicans had drafted a talking-points memo in order to properly spin the Schiavo story were all wrong. In fact, according to Malkin’s fact-free analysis, an unknown Democratic operative had concocted the phony GOP talking-points memo and duped the media in order to make Republicans look bad.

This was a big story, in which the honest and honorable media reported not only that a Republican wrote it — true, Brian Darling, legal counsel to Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) — but also that the Republicans distributed it to the party faithful on Capitol Hill — which turned out to be completely false: Martinez gave it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), and it was then leaked to the media. By charging Malkin with having “backed the novel conspiracy theory” that Democrats wrote the memo, he paints her as a delusional loon who can simply be dismissed.

But wait… did she really push that “conspiracy theory?”

As proof she did, Boehlert links to another post on Media Matters — attributed to “J.W.,” though there is nobody listed on the masthead of Media Matters with those initials; not only does J.W. not back up Boehlert’s accusation, he says precisely nothing about Malkin’s position:

[Josh] Claybourn [of In the Agora] posted a March 26 blog entry claiming that four anonymous GOP Senate staffers had accused a Reid aide of distributing “distributing forged ‘talking points’ to members of the media and claiming Republican authorship. Though this information has since been excised from the post [J.W. must mean excised from the Claybourn post], conservative syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who has been actively following this subplot on her blog, stated in an April 7 post that In the Agora originally identified them as staff members of Martinez and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA).

So all that J.W. is saying is that Malkin correctly reported that a Josh Claybourn post identified staffers for Sen. Martinez and then-Sen. Santorum as the culprits behind the false charge that the Schiavo memo was written by a Democrat. J.W. says nothing remotely like Boehlert’s claim that Malkin said “an unknown Democratic operative had concocted the phony GOP talking-points memo.” Eric Boehlert simply made that charge up.

But of course, Eric Boehlert is an honorable man.

In fact, it’s even worse: Michelle Malkin was skeptical of Claybourn’s informants’ information from the beginning. On March 26th — nearly two weeks before the J.W. post above — Malkin published a post titled Eyewitnesses?, question mark included. In it, she quoted from the Claybourn post, then added this:

I don’t buy it. Here’s why:

[We skip her five reasons for rejecting the In the Agora accusation.]

Unless someone is prepared to stand up and publicly point the finger at a specific individual and explain the decision to delay disclosing the true source of the memo, I can only conclude that ITA’s sources are probably lying.

Note not only Boehlert’s peculiar relationship with the truth of the matter — saying that Malkin had championed the idea that the Shiavo memo was written by Democrats, when in fact she immediately rejected it — but also the fact that he is so dismissive of those of us who didn’t go to J-school, that he thinks we won’t even bestir ourselves to follow his link and see what Malkin actually said. He believes he is safe, because “warbloggers” are either too stupid or too lazy to do the least bit of research.

Eric Boehlert believes his own arrogant fantasy of pajama-clad losers warblogging from their mothers’ basements. But Boehlert is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men.

The blogosphere — threat or menace?

Boehlert’s main subject, however, is the recently discredited and partially retracted Associated Press story about four mosques being “burned” and six Iraqi Sunnis being doused with kerosine and burnt alive; he latches hold of this story and tries to demonstrate how paranoid are the “warbloggers” he despises.

(Before reading further, please first read Patterico’s excellent summary of what we know (as of today) AP got wrong about that story.)

In his post, Boehlert shows utter contempt towards any blogger who dares question elite media reporting (rather than simply receiving it like tablets from Mount Sinai). He mocks the very notion that the MSM could be willing accomplices (or useful idiots), out to make us lose the war in Iraq… just as Walter Cronkite helped us lose Vietnam by falsely (and deliberately) reporting the Tet Offensive — a Viet Cong attack that failed catastrophically, resulting in the destruction of the Viet Cong as a serious military force — as a tremendous enemy victory that meant America had already lost the war.

Boehlert equates “warbloggers” like Michelle Malkin and Confederate Yankee with lunatic conspiracy theorists, disdaining as “illogical obsession” our suspicions about the accuracy, and even the veracity, of Iraqi and Afghan stringers and informers. He crows that we only question the MSM because we cannot face the reality that we lost the war (which certainly would be news to the American military personnel fighting in Iraq; and to the Iraqis; and for that matter, to al-Qaeda or Muqtada Sadr or whomever we’re supposed to have lost the war to).

Boehlert’s central j’accuse is that we “warbloggers” ignore the carnage of sectarian violence, clinging instead to irrelevant minor discrepancies (such as non-existent mosque burnings and burnt Sunnis who cannot be found) like “a ray of hope.”

And he also tries to slip another one across. Unable to seriously damage the credibility of “warbloggers” by actually finding errors or maladroit reasoning in their war-related posts, Boehlert embarks upon a campaign of drive-by discrediting: he finds some post somewhere, typically unrelated or only tangentially related to the war, where the warblogger in his crosshairs wrote something to which Boehlert objects. He then trots this out as more evidence of the “warblogger” being “unhinged,” “obsessed,” “demented,” or harboring “unbridled hatred of Arabs and Muslims” and wanting to see journalists “get killed”:

Warning: Confederate Yankee is the same warblogger who recently posted a Reuters photo of an elderly Iraqi woman wrapped in a headscarf and crying beside a coffin. Confederate Yankee sensed foul play and claimed the picture had been mischievously doctored by the wire service because the Iraqi woman’s face was actually George Bush’s mug superimposed onto the picture. I kid you not.

Actually, “kid you” he does… because following the link to Confederate Yankee makes it perfectly clear that Bob Owens was simply joking, for heaven’s sake. (Strangely, Boehlert never links directly to a blog; instead, he always links to a Media Matters redirect to the link target. I don’t know why he does this; perhaps it’s a pompous Media Matters house rule. But it’s annoying, since I actually must click through to every source to get the URL, rather than right-clicking and selecting “Copy link location”.)

Here is what Confederate Yankee writes:

Apparently, even nominal quantities of over-the-counter cold medications can cause you to see the most interesting things.

I know this, because this Reuters picture has all the earmarks of a crudely-edited PhotoShop, from the rather odd smudges and apparent artifacts around the heads of the two women on the left when the photo is enlarged, to the rather uncanny resemblance that one person in the picture has to someone I feel I should know.

After Adnan Hajj, Reuters wouldn’t fall for this sort of stuff again, would they?

It’s a good thing I can chalk this up to cough syrup. If not, I might have to start questioning the media’s accuracy.

If Boehlert cannot figure out that this is a joke, then he shares his sense of humor with John Kerry. The alternative is that Boehlert knew it was a joke, but he decided to pretend it was serious, in order to discredit Owens. But I cannot imagine he would do such a thing, for Boehlert is an honorable man.

Warning: Having now seen two examples of Eric Boehlert confabulating false charges against the “warbloggers,” who seem to haunt his dreams at night, I will follow the links on each and every such accusation that he makes from now on. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me 217 times in the same post, and I’ll resign from the blogosphere in disgrace.

Baghdad mosques are burning down, burning down, burning down

Here is Boehlert in full cry, expounding his thesis like Marc Antony bestriding Caesar’s dagger-riven body (so Boehlert’s head does not explode, I confess that all emphasis is added for clarity):

By inflating the disputed incident into a monumentally important press story, warbloggers, who have excitedly pounded the story for weeks, convinced themselves that blame for the United States’ emerging defeat in Iraq lay squarely at the feet of the press. Specifically, warbloggers claim that American journalists, too cowardly to go get the news themselves, are relying on local Iraqi news stringers who have obvious sympathies for terrorists and who purposefully push propaganda into the news stream — the way Hussein did with the Burned Alive story — to create the illusion of turmoil. Warbloggers, who have virtually no serious journalism experience among them, announced that what’s coming out of Iraq today is not news at all, but simply terrorist press releases — “a pack of lies” — regurgitated by reporters (or “traitors“) who want to see the insurgents succeed….

But warbloggers aren’t interested in an honest, factual debate about a single instance of journalistic accountability. And they’re not really interested in the specifics of the Burned Alive story. They’re interested in wide-ranging conspiracy theories and silencing skeptical voices.

Shakespeare weeps with envy.

But Boehlert is no fool; he knows that the MSM, like everyone else (including Boehlert himself), has an agenda. Boehlert is unhinged because the media elite, which he is part of, no longer dominates the news cycle, as they used to do before first talk radio, then the blogosphere threatened their monopoly. “Warbloggers” (many of whom are former soldiers) ask too many inconvenient questions; and it is Boehlert, not Malkin or Owens or the fellows at Power Line, who is rather desperate to “silence skeptical voices.”

But Boehlert is an honorable man; so are they all, all honorable men.

Continued next Lizard post…

Comment on this post here.

Eric Boehlert has a post titled “Michelle Malkin fiddles while Baghdad burns” that’s making the rounds on the moonbat side of the blogosphere.

Bob Owens has a takedown of the Media Matters bloviator here:

In Michelle Malkin fiddles while Baghdad burns, Boehlert dishonestly addresses the continuing Associated Press scandal surrounding the “Burning Six” story that emerged from the Sunni enclave of Hurriyah in Baghdad on November 24.

By the next day, even more details had emerged in the AP’s story along with a description of why the alleged attacks finally ended.

Synthesize the various versions of the story, and you will have a horrific story of how Shia gunmen attacked while the Iraqi police and military stood by, without interfering, as four mosques were destroyed and as many as 18 people were killed, including six Sunni men pulled from a mosque and burned alive after being doused with kerosene. Only the arrival of American military units brought an end to the carnage.

But here’s the problem… there is little to no evidence that any of these events took place.

Contrary to the AP’s reporting, the Ahbab al-Mustafa, Nidaa Allah, al-Muhaimin and al-Qaqaqa mosques were never blown up. There is no evidence uncovered that a single soul, much less 18, were burned in an “inferno” at the al-Muhaimin mosque. In fact, soldiers from the 6th Iraqi Army Division found al-Muhaimin completely undamaged.

There is no evidence whatsoever that six men were pulled from a mosque under attack, doused in kerosene, set on fire, and then only shot once they quit moving.

Only the Nidaa Allah suffered minor fire damage from a Molotov cocktail, and no injuries were reported. The Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense were apparently unable to discover any other physical evidence of any attacks in Hurriyah as the Associated Press, and only the Associated Press, claimed. Further, U.S. soldiers never intervened in Hurriyah on November 24.

The entirety of the Associated Press’ reporting on these alleged events relies on the testimony of two named sources and a handful of anonymous sources. Of those two sources, Sunni Imad al-Hashimi recanted his story after being interviewed by the Defense Ministry, leaving just one named source upon which the Associated Press was handing [its] credibility, Iraqi Police Captain Jamil Hussein.

As we now know, the Iraqi Interior Ministry has now gone on the record, declaring that they have no record of anyone by the name of Jamil Hussein employed as an Iraqi policeman, at any rank. They also disputed the records of more than a dozen other AP sources that claimed to be part of the Iraqi police for which they had no records.

…Boehlert, of course, is unsurprisingly disinterested as to why the Associated Press runs a story claiming the destruction of four mosques, the deaths of 18 people (six of them by immolation), or the allegations that Shiite military and police units allowed the attacks to take place. He quite purposefully leaves out the fact that all of the AP’s sources were anonymous, other than the one that recanted, and the other that was exposed as long-running fraud.

Like the AP, Eric Boehlert seems far more interested in protecting a narrative and attacking the messengers, than seeking to discover how the AP’s reporting could have been so horribly compromised.

Read it all. Couldn’t have said it better. I would add one thing that underscores Boehlert’s penchant for narrative protection over truth-telling. Apropos of nothing, he throws in a stupidly false charge against me that he has repeated in his book and previous blog posts:

It should be noted that Malkin’s breathless excitement over the AP story nearly matches the enthusiasm she used to spread online smears about the press in the spring of 2005 during the Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy. That’s when Malkin backed the novel conspiracy theory that press reports about how congressional Republicans had drafted a talking-points memo in order to properly spin the Schiavo story were all wrong. In fact, according to Malkin’s fact-free analysis, an unknown Democratic operative had concocted the phony GOP talking-points memo and duped the media in order to make Republicans look bad.

Wrong.

He is such an idiot that he doesn’t even read the link that he includes to bolster his ridiculous charge.

I am the one who called a fellow conservative blogger to task for irresponsibly reporting that anonymous Republican sources had accused a Democrat staffer in Harry Reid’s office of being the source. If he had bothered to follow his own links, this clown would know that. Or maybe he did and it doesn’t matter. He’s got a narrative to protect.

Boehlert charges that “[W]arbloggers aren’t interested in an honest, factual debate about a single instance of journalistic accountability.”

Like he would know anything about honest, factual debates and journalistic accountability?

Snort.

***

See-Dubya weighs in on faith-based reporting and the leaps of logic you would have to make to leave your faith in the AP’s reporting unshaken.

Charles Johnson notes more messenger-blaming by LGF-bashers at Radar Online.

Helen at EU Referendum responds to Boehlert:

Well, it is good to know that Eric Boehlert thinks that AP should be held responsible for its reporting and there should be hell to pay etc etc. But, let’s face it, he is not advocating that AP start an inquiry (not that it has shown the slightest intention of doing so). That would be a witch hunt, I expect. What Mr Boehlert is trying to do is quite simple: drown the whole subject in nasty innuendos and attacks on the bloggers, who happen to have raised, not for the first time, an important issue of truth in reporting.

Note to Wall Street Journal editors: If you’re going to quote someone making an absurd attack on a blog, you might at least publish the blog’s correct URL. (This is not the same as this.)

Update: Power Line’s Scott Johnson comments here: “It would be nice [if] the Journal would correct Ms. Cox’s cliqueish, arrogant, erroneous quote.”

John Hinderaker adds: “It’s sad to see Ana, with whom we’ve had a friendly relationship, make this misrepresentation about us. In a perverse way, though, her misrepresentation does prove her point: there are indeed bloggers who are as careless with the facts and with other people’s reputations as the mainstream media.”

Related: Getler: Post should have been “quicker and more straightforward” in clarifying Schiavo memo coverage

Now an unnamed Republican insider tells Mary Ann Akers of Roll Call that Darling received help from two other (as yet unnamed) Martinez aides:

Martinez’s press secretary, Kerry Feehery, continues to insist that that Schiavo memo was written “unilaterally” by one aide.

However, a Republican source close to the situation said the claim is “preposterous.”

The source told HOH [Heard on the Hill] that he knows “for certain” that two other senior Martinez staffers helped Darling write the memo and circulate it to other Republican Senators. “Those three were really working it,” the source said.

But Feehery said, “That is not accurate.” She denied that anyone but Darling was involved in writing the memo. “As far as I’m aware,” she said, “there was one person unilaterally writing the memo.”

Although allegations made by an unnamed source about unnamed staffers do not carry much weight with me, you never know. The idea that it might have taken three people to write that misspelled, inept, largely plagiarized piece of crap boggles the mind.

Separately, an article in the Hill says that “some Democrats are following whether GOP staffers tried to convince bloggers covering the issue that the memo had Democratic origins….”

This is apparently a reference to the anonymous tipsters who told Josh Claybourn of In the Agora that the memo was written and distributed by an aide to Sen. Harry Reid. Two of the tipsters claimed they worked for Sen. Martinez; two others claimed to work for Sen. Rick Santorum. (Tipsters made similar allegations to The American Prowler.)

The dishonest tipsters, whoever they were, are guilty of misconduct more serious than that which led to Darling’s resignation. Come out, come out whoever you are.

In today’s column, Kurtz cites the memo controversy after pointing out that a growing number of bloggers are engaging in unfair “personal attacks” on MSM reporters and commentators. Like Slate’s Jack Shafer, washingtonpost.com’s Terry Neal, and many liberal bloggers, Kurtz portrays this as a black-and-white case in which Post reporter Mike Allen got the story right and the conservative bloggers criticizing Allen got it wrong. He also falsely claims that some conservative bloggers did not back off from questions about the authenticity of the memo even after an aide to Sen. Mel Martinez admitted he wrote it:

When controversy erupted last month over what ABC’s Douglass and The Post’s Mike Allen described as a strategy memo given to Republican senators in the Terri Schiavo case, some conservative bloggers denounced the document as questionable, even fake. Not all backed off after GOP Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida admitted an aide had written the talking points.

Kurtz, Shafer, and Neal now focus exclusively on the authenticity of the memo rather than broader questions raised by bloggers about the accuracy of Allen’s reporting. By contrast, the Post’s ombudsman has admitted that the Post has not yet substantiated Allen’s still-unretracted allegation that the memo was “distributed to Republican senators by party leaders.”

Michelle Malkin is a cunt.

Posted by: hostile on April 7, 2005 at 11:17 AM | PERMALINK

Michelle Malkin is a cunt.

Check your talking points, dude. The Official Left-wing Anti-Malkin punch-word is “whore.”
Posted by: Once a dem on April 7, 2005 at 11:21 AM | PERMALINK

nope. hostile is right. she’s a cunt. Coulter is neither cunt nor whore. she’s a man. Maggie “Pay for Play” Gallagher is the whore.
Posted by: sean on April 7, 2005 at 11:24 AM | PERMALINK

Drum may argue he has no control over these bile-spewers. But Drum himself set the tone in his own shallow post on the Schiavo memo matter, in which he tells me and other bloggers to “just STFU” (“shut the f***k up” for the acronym-challeged). Does respected Monthly editor Charles Peters condone this rhetoric?

It’s clear that Drum has not actually read what I have written and reported on this matter, because in a post published at 2:25pm, he finally gets around to questioning Sen. Mel Martinez and his staff’s credibility on this–which I did first thing this morning at 5:06am. Drum, like Post reporter Mike Allen, also ignores my criticism of conservative blogger Josh Claybourn for spreading the allegation, based on four anonymous GOP sources, that a Democratic aide to Sen. Harry Reid had authored the memo. This is a story that deserves to be pursued. And when the MSM finally does pick up on, remember you read it here first.

But, hey, I’m just a c**t. And a whore. And I should just shut the f**k up. Right?

***
Reasoned analysis from Joe Gandelman.

And from my Immigration Blog posse member, Junkyard Blog’s Bryan Preston, who takes on the Kos people for Dowdifying.

Giddy e-mailers are demanding that conservative bloggers, including myself, “retract” and “correct” “right-wing lies” about the Schiavo memo. This one’s typical:

Eat it Malkin!!!! You Repugs have been exposed again. Ha! Ha!

And so’s this one, which was sent to me 18 times (so far):

F**K YOU! THE MEMO WAS REAL!

And, of course, there’s the requisite whore mail:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…
You are a STUPID F****G WHORE!

Ooooo-kay, for those who are not in need of remedial reading or anger management classes, let’s proceed.

After John Hinderaker at Power Line first started asking necessary questions about the reporting on the memo, many on the Right jumped to conclusions that the memo was “fake” or a “dirty trick.” I concur that those who made such claims should issue clear retractions and corrections. And I urge those bloggers and pundits to do so.

But contrary to what the left-wing gloaters who have not bothered to follow the story until last night are writing, I have never made such claims, a point I stressed yesterday afternoon in an e-mail exchange with Post reporter Mike Allen.

Allen sent me the following e-mail at 1:37 pm eastern time yesterday (the first he sent after ignoring numerous e-mails from me last week about this story):

From: “Mike Allen”
To: “Michelle Malkin”
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 1:37 PM
Subject: WP request

Howdy–I’m doing an article for tomorrow about what senators are saying about the Schiavo memo–I’d love to include your comments–I’d be interested in how you took an interest in this, where you think the memo originated, why you think it came from Democrats, etc.–We remain anxious to pin down the author and if you have clues, I’d love to pursue them–Appreciatively, Mike

Here was my response:

From: “Michelle Malkin”
To: “Mike Allen”
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: WP request

Hello Mike:

I was interested in the story because I was covering the Schiavo case extensively on my blog.

If you’ve read my blog posts on this subject, you’ll know that I have never claimed that it came from Democrats. Other bloggers have suggested that. I have not. You should also know from reading my blog commentary that I was the one who publicly chastised blogger Josh Claybourn of In the Agora for
irresponsibly reporting that anonymous Republican sources had accused a Democrat staffer in Harry Reid’s office of being the source. See http://michellemalkin.com/archives/001912.htm

I have no clue who wrote the memo and neither, apparently, do you. That is
why this remains a story of interest, if not to mainstream media, then at
least to the pajama-clad bloggers who watch the watchdogs.

Thanks for getting back to me.

Best,
MM

Allen did not cover the Claybourn story. Too bad. Claybourn’s encounters with anonymous GOP tipsters trying to pin the blame for the memo on a Democrat staffer were–and are–news. But more on that coming in a separate post.

After I blogged my criticism of Claybourn, he quickly and contritely retracted the post–unlike ABC News or the Post. Scott W. Johnson at Power Line agreed with my assessment, writing:

[Malkin's] take on the anonymous staffers is causing me to wonder whether the talking points memo didn’t in fact originate somewhere on the GOP side.

Power Line’s John Hinderaker disagreed with Johnson, underscoring the fact that there was not unanimity among conservative bloggers about who might have written the memo. (A diarist at Daily Kos paid attention and acknowledged this at the time, but you won’t hear them bringing it up now.)

For me, the salient questions always centered on what exactly ABC News and the Washington Post knew or didn’t know before they hyped the GOP politicization angle in the midst of the wrenching Schiavo debate.

A related issue was ABC News’ and the Post’s mischaracterizations of their own reporting. ABC News insisted it never said the memo was distributed by Senate Republicans even though Kate Snow said just that. Allen repeatedly denied that he reported the memo was distributed by GOP “party leaders” even though a widely-published article carrying his byline said just that. After this blog and others pointed out the discrepancy, Allen himself requested that his initial claim be retracted. Post editors, however, concluded that a retraction was not warranted.

Well, now we know the truth. Thanks to the Associated Press, with the Washington Post bringing up the rear. And, gee, it only took 18 days to nail down a story that differs in key respects from what Snow and Allen reported on March 19 without adequate substantiation.

Power Line patiently recaps the dismal reporting that led bloggers to ask questions in the first place. Mick Wright sums things up well:

I should note that we would know nothing more about this if not for the blogs. As we find in today’s WaPo story, the Senate investigation had turned up nothing. The media was stonewalling. Little came of individual calls to Senate offices and emails to reporters.

If not for a handful of blogs, a few rightwing pundits and some media watchdogs, the Washington Times probably would not have published their article, in turn putting the pressure back on the Senators and the reporters who first reported on this.

If not for the blogs, we would still be under the impression that GOP party leaders drafted that ridiculous memo and that all the Republican Senators received, read and approved of it.

Also, Brian Darling would still have a job.

The search for answers can be messy. Bloggers were at both their best and worst in this episode. But it was the MSM that failed to play it straight in the first place. As usual, Mickey Kaus gets the last word:

a) The memo was apparently not “distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders,” as Allen’s initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was–at least judging from today’s account–handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn’t in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn’t explain why he told Howie Kurtz he “did not call them talking points or a Republican memo” when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more “carefully worded” account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong. Allen wrote:

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as “a great political issue” …

This is almost the reverse of what Allen now reports. We know the memo was distributed to at least one Democratic senator. We don’t know whether it was distributed to any Republican senator other then the senator whose staffer wrote it (although it’s hard to believe it wasn’t given to at least some other GOP lawmakers). Allen’s story left the now-unsupported impression that Republican senators were conspiratorially reading the memo amongst themselves; d) The whole “memo” fuss, as played up by WaPo and ABC’s Linda Douglass, was wildly overdone even if the memo was a GOP leadership document–as if senators never consider what is a good political issue, as if that’s a no-no in a democracy. (Phoning Martin Luther King Jr. in jail was a “good political issue” for Sen. John Kennedy–and if you were trying to convince him to make the call that’s something you’d have pointed out!)

But certainly whatever legitimate valence Allen’s ‘memo’ story had depended almost entirely on the impression that the memo revealed and represented the strategy of the GOP leaders who pushed the Schiavo bill. If all that was involved was a staff memo Martinez gave to Harkin, Allen’s story was way out of whack.

Related: The Schiavo memo: GOP cover-ups?

Previous:
- Washington Post digs in
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch slaps the Washington Post upside the head
- Ask Kurtz again
- Will the Washington Post please respond?
- What exactly did the Post say about that memo?
- Kurtz revisits the fishy Schiavo memo
- Kurtz dodges again
- Ask Kurtz
- MSM continues to ignore questions about the Schiavo memo
- Howie Kurtz tries to cover up
- Kurtz keeps quiet
- Did the MSM learn nothing from Rathergate?
- MSM ignores Schiavo memo story
- Another fishy memo

Update: Proving my point about the Left’s lousy reading comprehension skills, Daily Kos tells his readers I should apologize for writing, “I suspect that no one at the Post or ABC News still believes the amateurish, unsigned, misspelled memo was circulated by Republican Party leaders.” My point was not that the memo couldn’t have been created by a Republican. My point was that GOP leaders such as Karl Rove would not have drafted or authorized such a sloppy, self-defeating document.

This is clear if you read the very next sentence, in which I explicitly acknowledge the possibility that a Republican staffer may have been responsible. Here is the full paragraph:

I suspect that no one at the Post or ABC News still believes the amateurish, unsigned, misspelled memo was circulated by Republican Party leaders. We may never know whether the memo was the handywork of a Republican staffer or a Democrat dirty trickster or an outside interloper, but clearly there is absolutely no evidence that this was a Karl Rove plot.

I have included extensive links to my posts on this subject, and links to what others have written from the beginning. It would behoove the Johnny-come-lately knee-jerkers to actually read them before braying about fairness, accuracy, and partisan zeal.

Update II: Mickey Kaus comments on Mike Allen’s e-mail:

Michelle Malkin reprints the email Allen sent her on Wednesday. It sure looks as if he’s faking ignorance to try to sucker her into making some outlandish claim about how the memo was a Democratic plant. J-School profs, take note of this technique!

Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz writes about the Schiavo memo once again, finally acknowledging that the Post did indeed report that the talking points were “distributed to Republican senators by party leaders.”

The flap about a Washington Post report on an unsigned strategy memo in the Terri Schiavo case, which the paper said was “distributed to Republican senators,” isn’t going away.

It turns out that The Post’s news service put out an early version of the March 20 story — published by numerous other papers — that said the talking points, which touted the Schiavo case as a political opportunity, were “distributed to Republican senators by party leaders.” GOP congressional leaders say they never saw the document, whose author remains unknown. Post reporter Mike Allen, who was unaware the news service had distributed the earlier version, said last week that the paper was careful not to say it was “a Republican memo.”

Incredibly, Post News Service editors still refuse to issue a correction, even though the reporter who co-authored the article has now requested one:

Kate Carlisle, the news service’s managing editor, says Allen’s report was sent out at 9:07 the night before and “we weren’t notified that changes had been made to the story after we got it.” Despite criticism from bloggers, and Allen’s request for a correction, Carlisle said no correction was warranted. Late Friday, the news service sent out an “advisory” saying: “The version of the article published by the paper did not specify the authorship and noted that the memo was unsigned. The authorship remains unknown.” The advisory did not retract the assertion that “party leaders” had given out the memo.

Unbelievable. Opening this one up for comments. 200pm Closed.

Contacts:
- Kate Carlyle, Washington Managing Editor, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, (202) 334-7666
- Michael Getler, Post ombudsman, (202) 334-7582, getlerm@washpost.com
- Al Leeds, President and Editorial Director, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service, (202) 334-6175

Previous:
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch slaps the Washington Post upside the head
- Will the Washington Post please respond?
- What exactly did the Post say about that memo?
- Kurtz revisits the fishy Schiavo memo
- Kurtz dodges again
- Ask Kurtz
- MSM continues to ignore questions about the Schiavo memo
- Howie Kurtz tries to cover up
- Kurtz keeps quiet
- Did the MSM learn nothing from Rathergate?
- MSM ignores Schiavo memo story
- Another fishy memo

***
Related:

Scott W. Johnson of Power Line sums it all up: Where did they get that idea?

But the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one of the newspapers that ran the Post’s March 19 story about the memo, isn’t buying it:

Clarification for April 2

A Washington Post article about congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case published March 19 in the Post-Dispatch included a description of a memo asserting that the action could benefit Republicans politically. The article said the memo was “distributed to Republican senators by party leaders.” A later version of the story did not specify the authorship. The authorship remains unknown.

Ouch.

Update: Turns out the Post-Dispatch’s clarification was based on an “advisory” sent out by the Post. See here for more information.

Arlington, Va.: Both the Post and ABC incorrectly reported that the memo was distributed by Republican leaders, and described it as a GOP memo. When will we see a correction?…

Terry Neal: This is what Mike Allen, who wrote the story, told Howie Kurtz about the memo earlier this week:

“The Post’s Allen said “the blog interest has been stoked by secondhand accounts” that the paper’s story referred to Republican talking points. “We simply reported that the sheet of paper was distributed to Republican senators and told our readers explicitly that the document was unsigned, making clear it was unofficial,” he said. “We stuck to what we knew to be true and did not call them talking points or a Republican memo. The document was provided by an official who has a long record of trustworthiness, and this official gave a precise account of the document’s provenance, satisfying us that it was authentic and that it had been used in an attempt to influence Republican senators.” Allen said that under the journalistic ground rules, he could not say whether the source was a Democrat or a Republican.”

So I can’t speak for ABC, but at this point, there’s no reason for a correction, based on what the Post reported.

Neal is apparently unaware that a Post wire story distributed by the Los Angeles Times / Washington Post News Service stated that the memo was distributed by Republican party leaders.

Later on in the same Q&A, another reader asks about the memo:

Springfield, Va: Lets try again. From WashingtonPost.com:
This article, published by the Post with A Reuters byline, clearly states that the memo was distributed by Republican Senators. I think Arlington was right — the Post needs to publish a correction.

Terry Neal: OK…I’ve got to take this one, then I’m out. The Reuters story did not run in the Washington Post. The Washington Post would not run a wire story on something like this. The story was apparently up on the webstite for a minute, but it was written by Reuters. If there is proof that the Republican leadership did NOT distribute this memo, then yes, Reuters should issue a correction. And yes, washingtonpost.com, I would think, would note in the corrections area that Reuters incorrectly reported that fact. But I still don’t think there’s proof that some in the GOP leadership did not pass the memo around.

Washingtonpost.com in fact published not one but two Reuters articles that said the memo was circulated by Republican leaders. They were posted on March 20th, nearly two weeks ago, and are still on the web site today (see here and here).

Whoops. Neal is a nice enough guy. In fact, he came to my house a few weeks ago to interview me for his “Political Players” feature. But he has absolutely no idea what he is talking about.

Even worse, Neal says that washingtonpost.com won’t run a correction for the Reuters story unless someone can show the memo was not distributed by Republican leaders.

OK, now that I see how this game is played, michellemalkin.com can report that Terry Neal (terry.neal@wpni.com) blends puppies and eats them for breakfast every morning. Of course, if someone can prove that he does NOT blend puppies I would be happy to run a correction.

Update: Kevin Craver publishes an open letter to the Post. It’s well worth reading.

If you look at the version of the article by Allen and Manuel Roig-Franzia that appeared in the Post on March 20, that is true. However, if you look at versions of the same article published in other newspapers on the same day, it is not true.

I already mentioned this article published by the Seattle Times, which states (in an article carrying a Post byline):

The one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s base…

Now consider this version of the article in the Oakland Tribune, bylined to Allen and Roig-Franzia of the Post:

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s base…

And this passage, which ran in the Contra Costa Times under a Post byline:

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, called the debate over Schiavo legislation “a great political issue” that would appeal to the party’s base…

And here’s the article in Yahoo! News, once again bylined to Allen and Roig-Franzia:

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party’s base…

Are we supposed to believe that a renegade Seattle Times copy editor inserted the phrase “by party leaders” on his or her own? Are we supposed to believe that copy editors at the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times and Yahoo! News inserted the exact same phrase on their own?

A much more plausible explanation is that the version of the Allen/Roig-Franzia article published in the Post differed from the version the Post sent out to other newspapers on its wire service. If the version of the article that went out on the wire stated that the Schiavo memo was distributed by GOP party leaders, the Post should acknowledge the error rather than blame “secondhand accounts.”

Finally, check out Donna Smith’s Reuters article, which the Post published on March 20:

A memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders called the case a “great political issue” and a “tough issue for Democrats,” The Washington Post said.

A separate Reuters article authored by Randall Mikkelsen, also published in the Post, stated:

A memo distributed to Republican senators by party leaders called the case a “great political issue” and a “tough issue for Democrats,” the Washington Post said in its Sunday edition.

If the Post never reported that the memo was distributed by party leaders, as Allen now asserts, the Reuters stories are in error. Isn’t the Post, which carried the stories, obligated to run a correction?

(Big hat tip to Tom Maguire.)

Contacts:
- Michael Getler, ombudsman, (202) 334-7582, getlerm@washpost.com
- Howard Kurtz, media critic, (202) 334-7420, kurtzh@washpost.com
- Mike Allen, White House reporter, (202) 334-6000, allenm@washpost.com

Update: Reader Patricia Topolski writes:

I went back through the paper bin and found what the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote about the supposed GOP/Schiavo talking point memo on 3/20/2005, page A9:

“A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders… ”

The story (Congress moves to Keep Schiavo alive) was attributed to Mike Allen and Manuel Roig-Franza of the Washington Post, with contributions by the Associated Press.

Update II: Mickey Kaus is also on the case. The. Heat. Is. On.

Late Friday evening I posted the accusations of four supposed Senate staffers who claimed a Democratic aide had distributed the “GOP” talking points memo. I now have reason to believe that in unraveling a hoax I was hoaxed myself. I haven’t been able to confirm a Sen. Reid aide was the source and barring more conclusive evidence I have removed the accused’s name from the original post out of fairness and accuracy. Those who made the accusations are nowhere to be found. Sen. Reid’s office labels the accusation “completely ridiculous” and Sen. Santorum’s office would not officially confirm or deny it, saying the investigation was “up to you, the bloggers, and the media.”

I’m disturbed and upset, both with those who anonymously made the accusation and myself for posting it without more judicious restraint….

In an e-mail, Claybourn informed me that he does not know the names of any of his four sources (the so-called Republican staffers). I think Claybourn should have disclosed that in his original post. For obvious reasons, claims made by a completely anonymous source must be regarded as far less reliable than those made by a source who is willing to disclose his or her identity to a reporter or blogger.

I often use sources who don’t want their names published, but I never publish information provided by anonymous tipsters unless I can independently verify the information.

Claybourn was careless. He had better hope that the Reid aide he accused of wrongdoing doesn’t sue him for libel.

But Claybourn is not the only one guilty of sloppy reporting on the Schiavo memo. See here, here, and here.

At least Claybourn has run a retraction and apology. As he points out, “that is much more than ABC or the Washington Post can say.”

A final thought: in responding to my critique, Claybourn wrote on Saturday morning that he “called the staffers to press them for names.” If Claybourn really believes he has been hoaxed, there is nothing preventing him from publishing his sources’ phone numbers.

On Friday four staffers of Senators Rick Santorum and Mel Martinez accused a renegade aide to Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) of distributing forged “talking points” to members of the media and claiming Republican authorship. In the Agora’s extensive investigations in the alleged “GOP” Schiavo talking points memo reveal possible tricks from low level Democratic aides. Two of the four GOP staffers tell ITA they were eyewitnesses to the exchange….

Four separate staffers, two apiece from two different conservative Republican Senators, now report to In the Agora that a young renegade aide working for Sen. Harry Reid constructed the memo and then distributed it to members of the media. Two of those staffers claim to be eyewitnesses to the exchange. ITA contacted Sen. Reid’s office and was told the allegation was “laughable.” None of the four GOP staffers would comment on whether Reid’s aide acted on his own or from orders from superiors. Developing. . .

I don’t buy it. Here’s why:

- ITA’s sources are apparently unwilling to identify themselves. Anonymous accusations must be viewed more skeptically than accusations made by someone willing to go on the record.

- Claybourn and/or his sources are unwilling to name the Reid aide accused of wrongdoing. If the accusations are true, there is no reason not to name him.

- The accusation depends on the unbelievable premise that the aide was dumb enough to distribute the memo in plain view of at least two Republican staffers.

- It has now been more than one week since ABC News first described the memo as “GOP Talking Points.” Are we really supposed to believe that Republican staffers sat around and said nothing for days, despite knowing all along that a Democrat staffer was responsible?

- The portrayal of the aide as a “renegade” strongly suggests he acted on his own. Yet Claybourn says his sources refused to discuss whether the aide acted on his own or from orders from superiors. This double-talk diminishes the credibility of ITA’s reporting and sources.

Unless someone is prepared to stand up and publicly point the finger at a specific individual and explain the decision to delay disclosing the true source of the memo, I can only conclude that ITA’s sources are probably lying.

Questions: Who are ITA’s sources? Are any of them the same unnamed “Republican leadership staffers” who told The Prowler a few days ago that someone in Harry Reid’s office generated the memo? (Both Claybourn and The Prowler cite aides to Sen. Rick Santorum.) If Claybourn concludes that his sources were lying to him, will he disclose their identities?

Update: Just to be perfectly clear, I am not disputing any of the other information Claybourn has gathered with regard to the Schiavo memo, just this particular report. I still believe the MSM has no basis for implying over and over again that the memo was distributed by Republicans.

Update II: In response to my post, Claybourn has revealed the name of the Reid aide accused of creating and distributing the memo. (Scroll down to the update of this post.) Claybourn acknowledges that skepticism is warranted:

like Malkin, I remain skeptical because of [my sources'] refusal to use [their names]. What is keeping them from telling me their full names and permitting me to use [them]? Unless and until that happens, this news should remain an interesting possibility, and not a probability.

Power Line weighs in here.

Yet only two newspapers in the entire country have mentioned the controversy. Worse, a number of MSM commentators continue to assert that these were “GOP Talking Points” distributed and/or written by Republican staffers, even though no one at either ABC News or the Washington Post (the two news outlets that first broke the story) is saying their reporting supports that assertion.

We noted yesterday that Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post’s media critic, referred to the unsigned talking points as a “Republican strategy memo”–a term that strongly implies the document was both written and circulated by Republican officials.

This morning the State published a column by Leonard Pitts that cites the memo without mentioning the controversy regarding the memo’s source. The Dallas Morning News published a column by Ellen Goodman yesterday that does the same thing. See also Newsweek, the Baltimore Sun, and the Detroit Free Press. And CNN.

Also yesterday, Mark Shields repeated the “GOP Talking Points” meme on Newshour with Jim Lehrer:

When you get a memo circulating on the floor of the House that says – Republicans — it’s important moral issue and our pro-life base will be excited that the Senate is debating this important issue, they condemned it — did the Republican leadership — they never denied it and they never disavowed it.

In fact, the memo was distributed on the floor of the Senate, not the House, and both Senate Majority Leader Bill First and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay condemned it. Here’s Frist’s statement, released on March 20:

There have been reports of a memo suggesting a political nature to Congress’ efforts on behalf of Mrs. Schiavo. I have never seen the memo, I did not authorize the memo, and I condemn the content of the memo and reaffirm that the interest in this case by myself, and the many members of the Senate on both sides of the aisle, is to assure that Mrs. Schiavo has another chance at life.

After Shields finished his misinformed rant, Jim Lehrer turned to David Brooks for a response. Unfortunately, Brooks seemed to endorse everything Shields said. He was completely unaware of the controversy regarding the source of the memo:

JIM LEHRER: What do you think, David? Frist and DeLay.

DAVID BROOKS: Frist and DeLay, I don’t disagree with anything Mark said about Frist and DeLay. I think they’re… Frist is a sincere man and in many ways a wonderfully admirable man who sometimes doesn’t let his true self come out because he’s running for president. I basically think that’s the situation. And DeLay I think much less highly of and what Mark described is just grandiosity which afflicts some politicians.

JIM LEHRER: The memo. Now you want to talk about the memo.

DAVID BROOKS: The memo is true and untrue. Listen, I think the Republican Party is a socially conservative party. They are deeply morally offended by what’s happening to Terri Schiavo. And so to discern the politics from the sincerity I think is just impossible to do. Politicians rightly identify the same. They’re the same. And so most people one meets on the social conservative side are totally sincere about this and would do it even knowing how unpopular it may turn out to be.

At this point, as I mentioned above, only two newspapers in the entire nation have mentioned the controversy: the Sun-Sentinel, which gave the story two sentences of coverage, and the Post, which ran Kurtz’s lame observations.

How much longer will the MSM be able to keep its head buried in the sand?

Earlier:

Another fishy memo
Did the MSM learn nothing from Rathergate?
MSM ignores Schiavo memo story
Kurtz keeps quiet
Howie Kurtz tries to cover up

Update: Too bad no one in the MSM has done this.

Powerline[,] which played a role in exposing CBS’s National Guard memos, is wondering about the Republican strategy memo that, oddly enough, fails to list an author:

“Confirming what we reported, ABC News has admitted that it knows nothing about the origins of the ‘GOP talking points’ memo that it first published. An ABC source writes:

“the memo discussed a republican bill and was distributed to repulbican senators. That’s what we reported. we are obviously not going to divulge our multiple sources. I appeciate your questions, but believe you are approaching this from the wrong end. We asked numerous sources — all confirmed that senators had received the memo in conjunction with one of the bills on the floor. For three days none of those sources has given us any reason to think there is more to the memo than a particularly naked expression of the politics of Shivo case.

“Try to ignore the spelling. ABC first reported the memo as a bombshell that disclosed Republican strategy. Now it says that the memo ‘discussed a republican bill’ and was ‘distributed to [some] repulbican [sic] senators.’ Whatever ABC may think of the ‘politics of the Shivo [sic] case,’ the network admits that it knows nothing about who authored and distributed the memo.

“UPDATE: I should have made clear that this email wasn’t sent to me, I got it from another blogger who has had extensive communication with ABC on this topic.”

Maybe the Powerline gang is right. But knocking down an unsigned memo by reporting an unsigned e-mail?

Well, well, well. Where to start?

First, note that Kurtz repeats the assertion that the unsigned document is a “Republican strategy memo” despite there being no evidence that the memo was either written or circulated by Republicans.

Second, Kurtz mentions that the memo did not contain an author but does not mention that the memo was written on plain paper with no letterhead or that the memo misstated the bill number of the Schiavo legislation–pertinent facts that most Post readers probably are not aware of.

Third, Kurtz fails to mention the role played by his employer, the Post. As I noted here, the Post strongly implied that Republicans were responsible for the memo–an accusation that some ABC News officials are now saying their reporter never made.

Fourth, Kurtz attacks Power Line for “knocking down an unsigned memo by reporting an unsigned e-mail.” John Hinderaker of Power Line raised serious questions about the memo well before he cited the anonymous e-mail from ABC News (see here, here, here, and here). So did Josh Claybourn of In the Agora. Kurtz makes it seems as if the unsigned ABC News e-mail is integral to the argument made by Power Line et al. when in fact it is peripheral.

Of course, the only reason Power Line had to cite an unnamed ABC News official is because ABC News won’t issue an official statement about the matter. Kerry Marash, VP of Editorial Quality for ABC News, and White House correspondent Kate Snow, who said on Good Morning America that the memo was circulated by Senate Republicans, have not returned calls seeking comment.

Fifth, Kurtz concedes that Power Line may be right but fails to include any new information that would shed light on this. It wouldn’t take much. All Kurtz has to do is ask ABC News and his colleagues at the Post whether their sources told them the memo was written or circulated by Republicans. Unfortunately, it appears that Kurtz (perhaps mindful of who signs his paycheck) didn’t even bother to ask these basic questions.

***
Kudos, by the way, to Power Line for predicting Kurtz’s reticence on this story. Fred Barnes’ take on the Schiavo memo is here.

***

Previous:

Another fishy memo
Did the MSM learn nothing from Rathergate?
MSM ignores Schiavo memo story
Kurtz keeps quiet

Update: Hinderaker weighs in here. He notes that the ABC News official’s e-mail was in fact signed. Hinderaker didn’t dislose the ABC employee’s name because he didn’t have permission to do so.