Still Standing (Technically)
This isn’t a slam, Michelle. No, really: It’s just a critique on a few minor points of your Iraq reporting — some constructive criticism for the next time that you and your boy ward set out to demolish the liberal MSM’s war coverage during a couple of days in-country.
Above: Michelle demolishes MSM reports about
so-called ‘matching ensembles.’
- TIP: When you’re building up to your big ‘gotcha’ moment — i.e., the revelation that, like you’d said, either three or two or at least one of a certain four mosques that the liberal MSM claimed were “burned and [blown] up”* were, in fact, undamaged (or in your recent, less precise phrasing, “not destroyed”) — it’s better if you don’t go visit one and then attempt a revelatory camera pan on a firebombed mosque with a giant hole blown in it.
- Breaking: The moon is literally made of cheese.
- Like I said, the moon is made of really hard, rock-like cheese.
- Here’s yet more proof that the moon is made of a soft rock which resembles cheese.
- Breaking: According to Flopping Aces via Patterico (hat tip: Confederate Yankee), Gateway Pundit has posted a screen-capture of an AP story that says (and I quote): “Because I’m still in love with you, I want to see you dance again, Because I’m still in love with you, On this harvest moon.” So the moon has harvests. Will the MSM admit cheese? Wai-ting…
- Liberals deny the similarity between the moon’s cratered surface and that of certain cheeses, for instance Neufchâtel.
- UPDATE: Whoops, I meant Gruyère — the circular or wedge-shaped kind with craters in it from ancient meteor strikes.
- As I’ve said many times, the real issue is that if the moon were cheese, the liberal MSM would attempt to sweep the truth under the rug, as is usual for them. As the present case clearly demonstrates.
- Breaking: The moon is literally made of cheese. Big surprise, eh, MSM? Blue Crab Boulevard reports that Flopping Aces writes that Confederate Yankee finds that Gateway Pundit reports that Dan Riehl writes that…
- UPDATE: Whoops. The AP story actually reads, “The [Rev. Sun-Myung] Moon[‘s hairpiece] is made out of [the pubic hair of North Korean 13-year-olds, and his office smells like the Incredible Hulk just cut the] cheese.” Story developing…
- “Hi, this is See-Dub guest blogging while Michelle
hides out for awhileis traveling on journalism business. Say, how about those liberals? Pretty unhinged, huh?” - I have many emails now from people, and I will now respond. Liberals dishonestly claim that no cheese is not never unmade of not-moon. Yet despite their best efforts to embolden terrorism, no amount of wild, unhinged ranting by the left can [mumble-mumble] about the [mumble-mumble], because okay, lunar rock, as I’ve said many times.
- Ha ha! Sneer! For certain the MSM has no credibility left, but are they willfully ignorant of the commonality of double vowels in the center of the words, ‘moon’ and ‘cheese’? Oo! Ee! (Hat tip: Gateway Pundit)
- Burning questions remain in the evolving moon/cheese double-vowel controversy.
- With the moon having been proven to be possibly cheese, I have decided to go to the moon to personally report on the cheese which is there.
- I came to the moon a darkening cheese-skeptic, but left with unexpected hope and resolve. Sure enough, here’s a picture of some rocks on the moon.
- [etc.]
- TIP: ‘Sneeringly triumphant’ probably isn’t the tone you want to assume when you report that two of the mosques in Hurriya (the only ones you actually saw) were firebombed. “What’s a little firebombing and small arms fire between friends?” you appear to be saying … but your report actually bolsters the original AP story rather than repudiates it.
- TIP: Word choice is important for a journalist. For example, you say:
U.S. military officials and the Iraqi government initially disputed that Hussein was employed as a legitimate police officer. After several weeks of stonewalling by its news executives, the AP published a report quoting an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman, who reversed course and verified Hussein’s existence and employment.
The problem with this paragraph is that you apply fairly neutral words — ‘disputed’ and ‘reversed course’ — to “U.S. military officials and the Iraqi government,” while using the loaded term, “stonewalling,” to describe the action of AP news executives.
One would almost think that it was the AP which had been shamed, and U.S. and Iraqi officials which had been vindicated by the proven existence of Jamil Hussein — and not precisely the other way around.
Here, try this:
“U.S. military officials and the Iraqi government initially denied that Hussein was employed as a legitimate police officer. After several weeks of disputing this claim by its news executives, the AP published a report quoting an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman, who reversed course and verified Hussein’s existence and employment.”
Voila. That’s better because it reflects the journalist’s concern for what actually happened, as opposed to what a biased person with an agenda might want people to believe happened — which is, you know, don’t make me say it.
- TIP: Touching on the meta-narrative is cool, but sometimes problematic. At the conclusion of this Vent, you say:
The four torched mosques story was wrong. The soldiers on the ground maintain that the six burning Sunni story doesn’t stand up either. And if these stories don’t, then how many others don’t? … Rumor-based reporting serves no one’s interest but those who would see Iraq fail.
For awhile here I’ve been hearing a whizzing sound and catching flashing blurs of movement in the corners of my eyes. In reviewing the above paragraph, I at last realized that it’s the proverbial goalposts rocketing to and fro.
Leaving aside your definitive claim that the ‘four torched mosques story was wrong,’ we’ll pretend that you exhausted all appropriate investigative avenues trying to get to the bottom of that story, instead of accepting at face value some official reports that told you what you wanted to hear. After you went to look at an ‘undamaged’ mosque and saw fire damage, not to mention a giant hole blown in it, you took it for granted that the other two ‘received no fire damage,’ based solely on reports from ‘Iraqi and U.S. Army officials’ that — if I’m understanding this correctly — you had already proven, with your own eyes, to be wrong.
Let’s cut to the chase: If suspicions about some recent AP stories should make us question all of the AP’s reporting since the beginning of the war, then how should we feel about U.S. military fudging on, for instance, the toppling of the Saddam statue or the rescue of Jessica Lynch? By your own logic, shouldn’t we be suspicious about the U.S. military as an official source on news out of Iraq?
And okay, ‘rumor-based reporting’? Didn’t I recently hear that John Kerry couldn’t get anyone to pass him the salt in a U.S. embassy mess hall if he was dressed like a garden snail at the bottom of a bucket? Remember that? And isn’t, like, 10/10ths of Glenn Reynolds’ output the passing-along of unconfirmed rumors? Remember the ‘green-helmet guy’? Whatever happened with that Jimmy Carter thing? Etc.
- TIP: Yes, Ilana Donna Arazie’s vlogs for the AP are pretty dumb. Yes, the AP could probably devote some more resources to fact-checking sources in Iraq (we guess). And yes, hyperbole can be an effective rhetorical tool.
But the idea that running Ilana Donna’s ultra-cheapo video interviews is somehow draining the AP’s on-the-ground Iraq resources? Well, that’s just stupid. And not ‘funny stupid’ or ‘sarcastic stupid,’ but just clueless-fucktard, ‘my readership is a bunch of oonting, groonting Don Martin characters’ stupid. Hoonk! Ga-splotz! Fwee!
- TIP: Love the cable-access intro music to your Vents. Keep it.
Above: the undamaged (and/or not-destroyed) Nidaa Alah mosque**
So to begin with, there’s that. Plus, Michelle, your most recent, even narrower term apropos the mosques in question, “still standing,” seems to set the bar pretty low. People might suspect a bit of a shell-game when they see the original Iraqi police statement — that four (4) mosques (four mosques) were burned and blown up (were burned and blown up) — countered by an upspiraling succession of flapdoodle claims that, au contraire!, all, or several, or at least one of the mosques was not in fact ‘toppled,’ ‘destroyed,’ ‘obliterated,’ ‘crushed by a 900-foot-tall Frankenstein,’ ‘atomized,’ ‘blown clear into orbit,’ ‘crumbled into a chasm straight down to the earth’s core,’ and/or ‘eaten by interdimensional space wombat-squid,’ as the so-called “Iraqi police captain,” the nonexistent Jamil Hussein, so outrageously claimed via the so-called “Associated Press” — who are therefore and for that reason in league with terrorists.
Let’s look at that video still again for a moment.
Above: The Nidaa Alah mosque, which is ‘still standing.’
I’m just saying: There exist people outside your readership who have attention spans, and who aren’t fooled by:
So regarding the two mosques you visited, and of which you show post-attack footage: Both show the effects of firebombing. The two that you only present in still photographs, and apparently didn’t visit? They “received no fire damage” — or so claim ‘Iraqi and U.S. Army officials’. Which, you know, fine — but since you didn’t actually visit those two mosques, aren’t you just accepting a possibly biased third-party explanation in much the same way that you pillory the Associated Press for supposedly doing? Because wasn’t it the same ‘Iraqi and U.S. Army officials’ who denied the existence of Jamil Hussein when, in fact, he does exist? Just sayin’.
UPDATE: Hit the main page for more.
*Updated to better characterize the original AP report, the relevant paragraph of which reads as follows: “Earlier that day, rampaging militiamen burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes in the capital’s mostly Shia neighborhood of Hurriyah, police said. Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the assault by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia or subsequent attacks that killed a total of 25 Sunnis, including women and children, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.”
** According to Malkin, the Nidaa Alah mosque was also ‘abandoned’ at the time it was ‘not destroyed.’ But a classic Malkin literalism would be to dismiss a site of reported violence as ‘abandoned’ or ‘deserted,’ suggesting that no one was there or cared about the site, while an accurate description would be something like, ‘fewer people were present than normally at such a time, because many had abandoned, or deserted, the routine which habitually brought them there.’ Or, alternately, ‘at the start of the violence, the people all went running out of (i.e., abandoned or deserted) the site.’ I wish we were kidding about her unbelievable shamelessness with language, because among other things, she’s quite hard to parody.
awesome bitchslap. i pissed myself laughing at this bit:
“And not ‘funny stupid’ or ’sarcastic stupid,’ but just clueless-fucktard, ‘my readership is a bunch of oonting, groonting Don Martin characters’ stupid. Hoonk! Ga-splotz! Fwee!”
and i don’t even know who Don Martin is
i think you forgot to close the “totie wee letter” brackets
and i don’t even know who Don Martin is
Don Martin is the bestest house-ape ever, the only one to speak ‘cat vomit noises’ fluently.
SHIF-SHAF SHABAMP MAMP SHOMPAH-BOMBAH DIMPAH MIMPAH FOMP-DABOMP! GADIFF-GADIFF GADAFF GADAFF GASMITCH GASMATCH KABOFF FAPADDA DAPADDA SWIPADDA DIPADDA FAP SPMAP GAMOP
The frigid dyke probably doesn’t even have children.
Michelle’s body language is troubling. I can’t quite put my fingers on it.
I can’t help looking at that photo of her posted above and thinking of Emperor Palpatine (or perhaps Ming the Merciless) seated on his throne and playing dice with people’s lives.
Watch out! She’s reaching for the trap-door button!
I stomped on those mosques.
If Malkin put that photo of her staring at an Islamofascist onion ring on her site, she would get a lot less attention. That picture would repulse wingnuts with an Asian fetish. And that’s hard to do.
Almost as good as her video pan to dome destroyed mosque is the interview with American military ops briefers who defensively stress, with apparently NO sense of irony or humor, that “… you should always have in the back of your mind ‘why are they telling me this?'”
It seems that all wingnuts ever needed to know they really did learn in Kindergarten, or at least their rhetorical technique. The original story that triggered their frenzy said the mosques were burned or blown up. That anyone with even a proton of integrity could actually say the words “firebombed” and “fire damaged” are somehow irrelevant to the concepts of bombs blowing up and fires burning stuff is embarrassing. Of course, without that proton of integrity then no problem.
Will you be posting the beaver shot outtakes from the photo session that produced the photo of Malkin in your report? If not, I will consider that an admission that you Photoshopped that suspiciously well placed shadow to the right of the top of her dominatrix boot. Obviously the light is coming from the right in the picture which makes a shadow to the right of her boot physically impossible.
Well, you know, the real point is that Michelle finally got to use her very bestest favorite Christmas present.
I mean, that’s what the U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
Fucking brilliant. Too bad malikn isn’t worth the genius it took to write this.
Seriously, if there is one imbalance in the blogsphere that freaks me out it’s the utterly bone-stick-stone stupidity of the right and the wit of the left in taking them apart again and again.
You’re too hard on Michelle in the AP stonewalling text – I think she just got one word wrong, maybe just a typo or a momentary slip of the mind. Instead of “After several weeks of stonewalling by its news executives…” it was supposed to say “After several weeks of stonewalling of its news executives…” – clearly there was stonewalling, just the wrong preposition. Anyone can make that “mistake.” Gee, people who think like journalists, rather than those who like to play journalists on tv and in print, can sure be picky over a word or two…
I’m pretty sure this 7&7 guy is a spoof. My commenters practice the art constatntly so I like to think at this point that I know it when I see it. Or maybe it’s such an obvious play into what rightwingers want to hear us say that a retarded six-year-old could pick it up. Same diff.
Great work, Michelle!
I’m only sorry it’s too late for you to take yourr cameras to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma city or to the Pentagon and prove to us that they too were “not destroyed”* and are thus undeserving of concern for anything that happened there. Good news is that there’s plenty of footage out there you could use instead (just don’t let anyone know you got it from the MSM and you should be golden).
*Did you know that both of these buildings were deserted immediately after they were “not destroyed,” too?
is it just me or does the image of the mosque look photoshopped, particularly above the windows? (cleaning it up?
It makes me sick to see MM all shiny and spiffy and basking in undeserved attention, and to think that Molly Ivins, wonderful real journalist and a queen of snark par excellence, is fighting cancer yet again.
“because among other things, she’s quite hard to parody”
take a minute and break down the etymology of that name… Michelle Malkin. Each word has a root, but i don;t have enough aluminium foil with me to break it down for ya.
Aside from her nom de guerre, she is hard to parody because she IS parody. She exists to bother the likes of us, and not for any other talent.
I almost expect miss annie or Doc BLT to get a pundit show next.
Laether…. boots. High thigh. Cheap dress,bad fabric but that’s okay because boots, leather. dress, cheap.
Shorter Malkin: Wensleydale?
She dresses (as does Coulter) exactly like the groupies who used to follow the bands around in the eighties. All they need is big hair. Actually, the hair’s right, if you place them in the late 80s, early 90s. Seriously, I’d not be surprised if the contents of her purse consisted of the following: One can aquanet hair spray, extra super hold, bottle of knock-off Poison or Obsession, red lipstick, panties stuffed in the bag that morning after leaving the scene of the previous evening’s party, and a coke vial with a crusty spoon attached.
Alicublog would have done it in half the space but even edroso at his finest couldn’t match the sheer brain melting hilarity. Kudos.
Jeez, tell me that Christmas photo has been photoshopped! Because nobody has carpet that color with those drapes!
OMG, the video’s title screen is unbelievable- it shows that same picture of the gutted mosque with the words STILL STANDING superimposed in a mid-90’s “grunge” font. Fucking hilarious. It’s like, yeah, the walls are still vertical and it’s recognizable as having once been a mosque, so I guess you could say it’s still standing.
Check it out, man: http://hotair.com/archives/2007/01/22/hurriyas-mosques-still-standing
The “boy ward” holds up the Philippines as an example of a US counter-insurgency effort to be emulated. That takes a lot of gall, or at least a lot of disregard for the value of human life.
And/or a whole lot of stupid.
DA, the 16 stages of journamalism bit is perfect. Of course it saddens me to know that the Malketeers either can’t read it, won’t read it, or won’t get it if they do read it.
Credit where credit is due, SM – the 16 stages is a GavinM addition.
OK, I just went and watchedher fucking stupid innuendo-ridden report.
So she went looking for the 4 firebombed mosques, found 2, and yes, turns out they were firebombed. Because she didn’t bother to go find the other 2, it proves that they weren’t firebombed.
She goes all the way to Iraq to “debunk” a story, and manages to do so without talking to a single primary source?
She talks about the guy who corroborated the six-Sunnis-on-fire story, and then “recanted” but I don’t even see that she cites his recantation. Who’d he recant to? Was it published? What about a direct quote of his recanting?
She goes and talks to soldiers (press officers, maybe?) who weren’t even there, who tell her anecdotes about how people in the street spread rumors. Is she really expecting us to believe that AP reporters take street rumors as their only source for a story (like she does?)
She claims the mosques were “abandoned” at the time of the firebombing. Never mind the fact that if a church in Alabama was bombed on a Thursday, you could probably claim it was “abandoned at the time.” What source does she have for that claim?
As far as I can see, the closest she got to the mosques was to sit in a Humvee across the street from them. Grerat investigative reporting!
“The AP claimed the dark substance on the walls around the window frame was soot from burning fires, but Flopping Aces has a link from a Confederate Yankee post revealing that painting black marks on the exterior walls above windows is a popular Iraqi architectural treatment”
Regarding the “U.S. and Iraqi Army officials initially disputed Hussein was employed” and then the “Interior Ministry reversed course,” piece of logical gyratiions – The Iraqi Interior Ministry does not equal U.S. and Iraqi Army officials. The Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police (who, I believe, come under the Interior Ministry) are distinct from one another. If source A and source B claim X, and source C “reveals” not-X, it isn’t a matter of source C “reversing course.”
It would be like the Defense Department making a statement, and the Department of Agriculture making a statement that contradicts it.
ichomobothogogus — Don Martin named you, and you don’t know he is? Oh, teh shame!
Well D, the mosque was obviously not burning. What do you have to say about that?!?!? Huh??!?! If it was “firebombed” It would be burning!!! It is so obviously not burning so it could not have been firebombed. PROOF!!!!
And I dig the new skylite. It gives the mosque a more airy merging with the goddess kind of feel. Why didn’t the AP report on all the wonderful remodeling taking place in the mosques? The are traitors.
Shorter Malkin: Who are you going to believe? Me, or my lying eyes?
Don Martin -charter member of Mad Magazine’s “usual gang of idiots”.
His artwork was as singular as his wonderfully innovative onomatopoeias. I couldn’t look at a Martin rendition of human feet without my own feet hurting. For some reason, feet in his world were very very large, hinged in the middle with the front half flopping downward…OUCH! If it weren’t for Mad Magazine, many youngsters -especially males- would have had even more difficulty figuring out the world during our wonder years. He was truly furshlugginer if not totally potrezebie…
[…] Who are you going to believe? Me, or my lying eyes? Add to: Bloglines | document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | Digg it | +Google | Y! MyWeb […]
That’s better because it reflects the journalist’s concern for what actually happened, as opposed to what a biased person with an agenda might want people to believe happened — which is, you know, don’t make me say it.
Yeah, but this is citizen journalism. Professionalism is so pre-9/11.
Great post.
Well, how do you know what looks green to you looks green to me? It might be blue. When I need it green is red. Then green again. Sometimes its purple. Oh hey Look, its Green.
My favorite Don Martin quote has always been “Oot greet!”
There seems to be some kind of manual control with a wire coming off of it sitting on Michelle’s chair. Would it be irresponsible to suspect a personal “sexual health device” in use?
It would be irresponsible not to.
The Don Martin line was, all on its own, so good that it made up for having to spend ten minutes thinking about Michelle Malkin.
Personal sexual health devices are so partisan. I prefer impersonal sexual health devices.
Talk about “moonbat”.
Geez.
Ceci n’est pas un firebombed mosque.
Michelle’s got a more subtle game going about which none of us know Fouc-alt. It’s no longer about the treachery of liberals, it’s the treachery of images. Michelle Fuck-boots paging Michel Foucalt. Emergency on the Hot Air set.
Fucking brilliant. Too bad malikn isn’t worth the genius it took to write this.
Pretty much. I particularly liked the summation of the wingnutosphere’s love of creating a a daisy chain of rumor–if one blog publishes something moronic, well,…as long as several others link to it, that makes it a fact!
Shouldn’t that sign to Michelle’s right read:
“National Review Institute: Conservative Nadir”
Fuggedabout Occam’s Razor.
Oswald’s Algorithm: When the simplest solution challenges your personal narrative, that solution may be disregarded.
Inquiry – Is it possible that she wasn’t so much as “lazy” to find the other two mosques, but “dis-allowed” by whoever I assume was in charge of the “Don’t Let Neo-Con Asset Die” security detail?
Don Martin, MAD’s maddest artist! Creator of Fonebone!
Djangone–
I always said Malkin knew sweet Fouc-alt.
“A momentary slip of the mind” is a terrible thing to waste.
“National Review Institute: Conservative Nadir�
funkyb0ss, wouldn’t that imply that there was no further for them to descend? I strongly disagree.
Let’s cut to the chase: If suspicions about some recent AP stories should make us question all of the AP’s reporting since the beginning of the war, then how should we feel about U.S. military fudging on, for instance, the toppling of the Saddam statue or the rescue of Jessica Lynch?
*cough* Pat Tillman *cough* soldiers kidnapped from Green Zone *cough*
Ok, I watched this thing. Did anyone esle notice the terror in Malkin’s voice and in her eyes? I expected her to be confident, arrogant – like a Limibaugh or a Hannity – bravely spewing spin in substitution for fact. But, in fact, it wasn’t like that. Malkin knows that there’s no story here. I suppose maybe she’s trying to get her big break as a reporter or as a pundit, but man, she looks like hell and just isn’t in any way convincing. Not to mention that her credibility is all shot to hell. I mean c’mon. She’s just a joke. No talent. No brains, and without considerable tweaking, she even looks like hell. Welfare recipient.
“Anyone you talk to, you have to consider their underlying motivation,” said the Lieutenant to the blind and deaf whore.
I’ve always thought that Malkin looks rather like Ebichu’s master.
I call her JesseMichelle because, you know, she and hubby are so close, working together and all.
[…] Update (Bryan): I see that our friends at Sadly, No! can’t distinguish between a mosque having a hole in an onion-shaped thing on top and that mosque being destroyed, as the AP reported on Nov 24. That failure to distinguish between such widely varying descriptions should guide you if you read anything else published there. […]
There are tons of conservatarian heads exploding with this post. I love how the only defender to join this fray had to be a ratfuck troll who wanted to make it look like a real liberal would call Michelle a “frigid dyke.” What I don’t understand is why that person didn’t go the whole hog and call her a “chingchong ping pong ball-popping slanty-eyed zipperhead fuckee-suckee hooker.” (You just know one of her or Jeff Goldstein’s mouth breathers will latch onto that one out of context. Huzzah!)
Oh Christ and can that trackback stay here FOREVER???
I see that our friends at Sadly, No! can’t distinguish between a mosque having a hole in an onion-shaped thing on top and that mosque being destroyed, as the AP reported on Nov 24. That failure to distinguish between such widely varying descriptions should guide you if you read anything else published there.
Emphasis mine, dipshittitude in the original. I expect the “world is black and white” thinkers among the Rightwing Blogdystopia to jump on her for this unseemly example of nuance any minute now…
fantastic post
*sigh*
The only accuracy I can find at Hot Air is its name.
The only accuracy I can find at Hot Air is its name.
And a case can be made that they stole their name from Balloon Juice…
For anyone interested, I wrote further about this on my post:
Dark Days for Michelle Malkin
“Update: Kaus unloads on Sullivan Updated with a response to Sadly, No!”
It doesn’t get much better than that, folks. And we all know how much the right-wingers like to parse their words. That can’t be accidental.
okay, you guys need to go back and listen to when Miscka is talking. Turn up the volume – what do you hear?
That’s right. Slurping. Then a sigh, a giggle, and a smack.
and does she even listen to what the guy is saying? Basically, he’s saying that Iraqi officials, such as the police chief he talks about, are all in cohoots against the US forces. And they both get a good laugh out of that – these are the guys who are supposed to be on our side right? Am i missing something?
The other fun thing to do over there is to read the comments – “you tell em Michele!” Can they not see that huge hole in the “good” mosque she found? Jeeezus christ superstar.
Here’s what really frosts me and drives me up the wall. I just went to Malkin’s site to have a look, and in their comments section there’s nothing but back slaps and cries of delight that the MSM has been “proven” by Malkin to be biased against everything American and the glorious war effort.
It’s like there’s no recognition of reality by these folks. I don’t know how you can keep highlighting such ignorance and still maintain your sanity when exposing it so thoroughly seems to have no effect. I’d go crazy.
What’s wrong with these people?
i love i love i love i love it.
their “sadly no is teh wrongest” post comes complete with, five minutes later, a “Clarification”. the clarification says, and i’m paraphrasing barely, “sure the claim that i just made literally 2 virtual inches above is more…truthy…than factual, fine. but while clearly i both moved the goalposts and straight up lied 2 inches above, let me point out that i could have lied even more, i really could have! I COULD HAVE USED A FAKE PHOTO!!! but i didn’t, instead using a photo that is true.”
seriously. so the defense is that they used a photo that clearly shows that mm is utterly and entirely full of shit in the claims she makes about that very photo. then they ask, in all seriousness, for credit not using a different photo which would have been an indication that malkin was right, of the same mosque from a different angle. these differing angles of the mosque do not suggest to them that trusting photos can be a dangerous thing. no no. instead, unironic bizarro world reasoning that the very fact that various photos could be misleading left alone.
i can’t do it. my head will explode. brian or whoever you are writing that shit on hot air, let’s be clear: you are a liar. you are a horrible human being. you care more about your meta-narrative (MSM BAD) than you do about the truth, about our soldiers, about our national treasury, about iraqi lives, about anything real. you are a moral relativist of the worst sort, a truly loathsome human being. the fact that your commenters can look at the photo and not notice a giant hole in the roof (whatever its provenance–after all in the first post it isn’t explained at all) should make you understand you are preaching to a choir of fucking morons. fuck you and the blog you rode in on.
So, she was wandering around the safe, safe, safe streets and alleys of Baghdad completely unescorted, was she? And yet she somehow neglects to visit and film two of the mosques in question? What is she doing back? I would think she’d want to stay there partyin’ down with the lamblike denizens of that city and sending back images of her soirees with them (to show just how demented the MSM really is!!).
Something tells me that she’s incapable of absorbing just how bullshitty her entire act is, slamdowns like the one above nevertheless.
From the link to Jamil Hussein’s original statement, above:
“Earlier that day, rampaging militiamen burned and blew up four mosques and torched several homes in the capital’s mostly Shia neighborhood of Hurriyah, police said. Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the assault by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia or subsequent attacks that killed a total of 25 Sunnis, including women and children, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.”
So these right wing idiots are busy debunking something that doesn’t even provide the assertion in the informant’s actual words?
And if you go to the AP story here:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-24-sunni-shiite_x.htm
The account of the six burned Sunni’s isn’t directly attributed to Hussein anyway.
All the article says is that the mosques were “blown up” and “burned” attacked with RPGS and gunfire, “attacked”, etc. Nothing says they were destroyed or claims that they couldn’t be “still standing.”
I look at that photo and see a mosque that has been burned, blown up, probably also “attacked.” Is there anyone that would dispute that?
Some people can’t see the excellent paint job for the gaping hole in the roof.
Yeah, so if Iraq was such a nice little place, what kept her from visiting the other “non-destroyed” mosques?
onion-shaped thing on top
That would be a dome, dear.
You’re welcome.
That picture of Malkin has made me reconsider my position on Bush. Is that wrong?
‘Destroyed’ vs. rendered unfit for use. Michelle’s wingnut welfare doler-outers will be overjoyed that she just spent weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to dial back an adjective. And what’s more, while she’s there she shoots footage that cripples not only her credibility but that of twenty wingnut bloggers and thousands of dickless fans who follow her like upskirt video shooters on a Tokyo commuter train. ‘Onion-shaped thing?’ My cupola runneth over.
Hmm…something in here reminds me of an old favorite Don Martin strip.
Frame 1: Summer. Open-mouthed dolt, clad in wife-beater, sweats in his apartment.
Frame 2: Dolt turns on electric fan as housefly enters window (dotted line traces path)
Frame 3: Fly hits fan air-blast and veers into dolt’s mouth.
Frame 4: Dolt erupts with a ‘Gaggak-thoof!’ Spits out fly.
Frame 5: Fly hits fan. ‘Shhhinggg!’ sound effect.
Frame 6: Fly slime covers face of dolt, knuckles scraping ground, facing camera, black cloud over head.
Relevant? In the words of Elvis Costello in ‘Human Hands,’ ‘Do I have to draw you a diagram?’
http://home.ripway.com/2004-4/95613/DBlunderground/OK_City_Bombing.jpg
Still standing?
http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/9-11/Pentagon/Pentagon_9_12_01_300.jpg
Still standing?
That pic…*shudder*…reminds me of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct…2…if Sharon Stone were totally unattractive and able to fire lasers from her eyes.
I’m still standing.
Man, all that attention paid to Michelle, and not even a half a point made.
You need a hug and a hobby.
Michelle had the report already penned in her mind before the trip. Being “on site” was merely a formality, a means to lending her stubborn bias credibility.
footage that cripples not only her credibility but that of twenty wingnut bloggers and thousands of dickless fans who follow her like upskirt video shooters on a Tokyo commuter train
Zinga!
Oh — and I wonder what mac was reading. But not really.
Mac,
Sorry that paying attention hurts your brain.
You can go back to lovin’ up your stuffed animals and playing with your Lincoln Logs now.
Rancid
Clearly, Michelle is crushing your head. She has crushed it very small!
Confederate Yankee’s Retort:
“Second, a partially collapsed dome does not a destroyed building make. To be sure, Nidaa Allah took some serious damage to its dome [blown up with an RPG] and some fire damage to several rooms, but this damage is still quite a stretch from what I picture when I hear that a building has been “burned and blew up.”
…this damage is still quite a stretch from what I picture when I hear that a building has been “burned and blew up is still quite a stretch from “Jamil Hussein does not exist”.
I know that was what D. Aristophanes said in the post, but obviously there were too many words for the wingnuts to comprehend.
yeah, but would you still fuck her?
The choices are:
a) No
b) Wha?
As a former spoiled brat of a child, I think I understand what Michelle is doing here. Basically, she’s throwing a tantrum and being wildly unreasonable to get what she wants. I’m not sure why whatever part of her mind that chose this route thinks the MSM will care how long she holds her breath, but, I’m guessing, in her mind if she keeps it up long enough daddy AP will cave and say, fine, do our Iraq reporting for us, Hot Air.
I really hope the Malkins never reproduce, if only for the sake of the resulting offspring. It’d be bad enough having their genetic inheritance, let alone having two people with the emotional maturity of 12 year olds for parents.
So what if Michelle screwed up? The broader point here is that everything George W. Bush does is great.
Wow. Brilliant. You have penned the “Ur-Malkin” narrative. She need never write an, err, original post again, just change a few words around. Oh, wait… 😉
Why does the word ‘fucktard’ keeping invading my consciousness as I read about these people? I always thought it was a trashy word, but kind of like what happened with ‘douchebag’ in ’04, I think it’s finding it’s natural, Platonically-ideal application, which is apparently to describe Michelle Malkin and her fucktard-stupid followers.
I guess, by “Bryan’s” standard, the Murrah building in Oklahoma City wasn’t blown up either. ‘Cuz, you know, it was still standing afterwards, except for that big hole in that wall thingy.
Well I was over at mm’s site reading the comments on this piece of hilarity. They are all back-slapping and congratulating mm and themselves on “cracking” another case. Scores of comments I read to that tone.
I couldn’t comment because I’m not registered there, but I’d really love to post the comment:
“Um…. did anyone happen to notice that there’s a huge hole blown in the roof of the mosque in the film?”
Seven and Seven said,
January 28, 2007 at 15:39
“The frigid dyke probably doesn’t even have children. ”
Yes she does Chelsea. I didnt see “Evita” aka Mrs Clinton, mentioned in this item….pjh
Still standing: A-Bomb Dome
Still standing: Kaiser Wilhelm Church
@Robert Green
the thing about that other photo that they could have shown was that it’s clear from that photo that the place had been on fire.
In order to imply that the place had not been firebombed, they picked the photo that had the collapsed dome, instead of the one with the dome, but soot marks above the windows.
tough editorial call.
paul harringtorn
are you speaking to someone named “chelsea”? because without a comma after “does” you seem to be addressing a person named Chelsea. i assume, given that you are a total fucking asshole, (by the way, welcome to the comma clause! it can be your friend if you want it to be) that your grammatical idiocy is merely an outgrowth of your general stupidity, rather than the other way round.
also, your second sentence is so garbled and lacking in punctuation…sigh.
i can’t take it. you are another D student wandering around the halls of the internet, saying stupid things obnoxiously. a pox on your house. oh, and ad hominem attacks on Hilary are so 99, fucktard.
WOW. The lady has the balls to go to Iraq, and none of you do, so this is what she gets for her efforts.
Slimy bastards, you are all banned.
And I mean, just the dome got hit, it’s NOT destroyed. LOL.
Grasp away to show your hate.
good. i’m sick of commenting over here, always having to think and have my own opinion, one that doesn’t always conform to yours, gavin. i’ve just joined hotair under my pseudonym, and i’ve already figured out the only comment i will ever have to leave for any post there:
“gee michelle, you are so right and brave. the MSM sux and you’ve shown them how it’s done.”
welcome to your fascist future.
WOW. The lady has the balls to go to Iraq, and none of you do, so this is what she gets for her efforts.
I’ll be the first to admit that you have a point, annieang… er, ‘Gavin’.
There’s certainly something to be said for having ‘the balls to go to Iraq’.
But there’s also something to be said for declaring victory over the MSM based on your wilful misinterpretation of the vanishingly small amount of evidence you gathered while you were there.
And that something is: “Shut the fuck up, you mendacious, agenda-driven bitch.”
i’ve just joined hotair under my pseudonym
What’s that smell?
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air’s community of registered readers. Registration is currently closed. That means if you’re not already registered, you can’t comment. We will let you know if and when registration re-opens.
That would be the smell of pants on fire.
AP said the Mosque was “destroyed”. It wasn’t.
AP used Jameil Hussein as reference. Still can’t produce his existence.
4 Mosques were “destroyed”. Not true.
AP has Sunni working for them and they have rooting agenda against Iraq. Do you understand this?
Can America Lefties understand this or do they hate their own country so much they root for Iraq failure???
How many of you watched all of Michelle Maklin video about Iraq?
“islmfascist” (what, was islamfascist taken? islamofascist as well?)
dude, i’m not actually registering over there. you see, the point of my comment was…
wait, if i have to explain it to you, it is because you too are a total fucking idiot who can’t comprehend sarcasm even when it comes with a giant S tattooed to its forehead. is there one person who can come here to to sadly! no, a website that does not in fact moderate its comments, and leave behind anything other than a steaming pile of shit-for-brains?
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air’s community of registered readers. Registration is currently closed. That means if you’re not already registered, you can’t comment.
Anybody want to borrow our account?
oh for the love of FSM. you misspell (yet again) the alleged Hussein’s first name. this was one of the problems to begin with.
Two of your points seem to be that mosques were not in fact destroyed. that’s repetition in place of argument, idiot.
two of your points seem to be that mosques were not in fact destroyed. that’s repetition in place of argument, fucktard.
see how that works?
AP have “sunnis” working for them, not “Sunni”. idiot. also, the AP has shia, and kurds, and turkmen working for them. your point is wrong, you are both stupid and a liar.
You mean “American” not “America” and “Iraq’s” not “Iraq”. if you are listening to MM’s characterization of what American leftists do and don’t believe, you are an idiot. again.
you misspelled “Malkin”. you really did.
so, to summarize: your points are either risibly false or misleading, you can’t spell or use proper English grammar, and you think MM knows what people on the left do and don’t think about America. as well, you think the AP is some monolith and that they should magically, while working in Iraq, not hire actual Iraqis.
i will grant that your handle leads me to believe you aren’t from these parts, so i can forgive the spelling and grammar–the stupidity of the rest of it is another story.
Lemme tellya about warzone tourists. And annie? Put down the pie and pay attention. You might learn something.
We had journalists. Print, tv, photo, international, freelance, every kind. And in those days you could pretty much hitch a ride on a chopper and get anywhere you wanted to go. And most guys didn’t mind the journalists asking questions after action. But they were circumspect. They didn’t look for political opinions. And when you’ve got guys who fought all night, covered in oil and blood and gunsmoke and fear and horror, you might tend to be careful about what you ask them. But while there was some resentment (motherfucker mighta been here last night to see it) we mostly didn’t mind talking to them, especially if they had booze or pills.
But there was others. Congressmen, aid workers, missionaries, true believers, crazy hitchhikers, nobodies. The malkin thing would fall into that category. And she would have been treated like a tourist, lied to, ignored and quite possibly fragged. They were playing at war. Volunteering to be there to look around and then going home. You ain’t going to carry your water, don’t come looking for a drink, y’know? Fuck them all. You don’t come into a war, all clean and smelling pretty, and ask a few rigged questions and think for ONE FUCKING SECOND you get it?
Gonna tell you something, children. The peeps that talked to her might have seen her as some kind of valueable, or not, but as a bloodthirsty vampire war tourist I can assure you she had nothing but the contempt of every dude on the line. And for that I say right on, get some….
mikey
Wow, the nom-pilferage and new-troll-drops the last couple days have made this a whole new, kee-razy ball game, kids.
Oh, and Aqeel, lots of people have trouble producing their existence. Try to show a little compassion.
Pst. I’m working on a fun follow-up to this piece. Should be done in a few minutes.
“Second, a partially collapsed dome does not a destroyed building make. To be sure, Nidaa Allah took some serious damage to its dome [blown up with an RPG] and some fire damage to several rooms, but this damage is still quite a stretch from what I picture when I hear that a building has been “burned and blew up.�
Oh, hell yes! As a matter of fact, their State Farm representative is expected any day with their check. And the congregation is holding a bake sale and barbecue next Saturday to raise money to replace the upholstery!
In what fucking city of the US would a church with a collapsed ceiling and major rooms burned out be a viable structure? Even without being in a war zone.
These stupid fucks are talking like the mosques just sustained a little Mischief Night fun, like an over-ambitious TPing.
AP said the Mosque was “destroyed�
No it effing didn’t. Here’s the original AP story:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-24-sunni-shiite_x.htm
NOWHERE does it say “destroyed.”
[…] Michelle Malkin, upset that she got completely humiliated by Dr. Aristophanes and Dr. Gavin, issues a challenge: Tellingly, the pathetic, attempted debunker fails to link to either my post at mm.com or my full report at the NYPost, which give the full details and nuance (plus more photos) of what we found versus what the AP reported (and didn’t report). There is now an all-too-predictable attempt to distort our reports. Read. Them. In. Their. Entirety. For. Yourselves. […]
I can see the boots on Michelle, but I was pretty surprised that Mona Charen was wearing them too at their pow-wow. And they stuck K-Lo behind the table where no one would try to ogle her.
So the Penatgon was barely even attacked right? I mean one hole on one wall. It’s already got an extra wall anyway, so it’s more like an opportunity to add a bay window than like it was ‘bombed’ or anything.
That’s right, Bullsmith. The Pentagon wasn’t even TPed!
Thank you, Chet Scoville, for linking the original article. The wingnuts are completely misquoting it. It says buildings were “burned,” not that they were “burned down” or “destroyed.”
The photo Ms. Malkin took is actually consistent with the news report in AP.
If, as the story says, the attackers prevented people from entering a burned building to retrieve casualties, then of course the building was still standing, but it had been “burned,” just like this building.
Did Ms. Malkin view all four sides of the building? Did she enter it?
Just what is her point? That this building was never damaged? That there is no bloodshed in Iraq? Lunatic.
I bet she shaves her cooter….
If I were a shrieking harpy like Michelle (no offense, Pam) I’d probably bellow at her to click on Chet’s link, and then I’d scream
There is now an all-too-predictable attempt to distort [AP] reports. Read. Them. In. Their. Entirety. For. Yourselves.
Luckily I’m not.
Bitter. That’s what this site has become.
Bitter and hateful. Not funny, just slamming those who DO rather than DOING anything ourselves.
I need a vacation. This site used to be about fun, now all we do is trash people who put their money where their mouth is, while we sit home and do nothing but be bitter.
Michelle, forgive us our envy of your popularity.
None of us would ever go to Iraq. We just don’t have the balls. You made us look bad and feel bad and just……I don’t know, but we are very sorry for the way we are acting. Brad is right now crying, I have to go comfort him.
Annie: if you hate this site so much, do us all a favor and FOAD.
Jeez, yeah. Seriously, princess, give it a rest. Work on some new material.
After reading this post and the post over at Firedoglake, I realized something about the extreme right wingers.
This is probably very obvious to everyone else, but I felt like it finally “clicked” for me.
The right wing extremists are engaged in duel against other extremists. They try desperately to get the attention of the undecided, of those in the middle towards their cause.
Its just a standard distribution, where today we have loons on both ends of the spectrum, where facts and truth are only useful as long as they help their agenda.
I know this sounds obvious, but it just stroke me.
And that is why blogs like Sadly No! and PatriotBoy are so incredibly fun, because the fundamentalists are such great sources of idiocy.
Fuck you, Brad. 🙂 You’re not the boss of Annie.
Gavin said:
Admitting you have a problem is the first step in resolving it, Gavin. You should probably read Michelle/Bryan’s rebuttal though. It might help you understand how you are misrepresenting the facts.
putnam said: “The wingnuts are completely misquoting it. It says buildings were “burned,â€? not that they were “burned downâ€? or “destroyed.â€? ”
Chet is feeding you misinformation. The article said they ‘burned and blew up four mosques.’ (h/t CY) You should have more trust that Michelle would not deliberately attempt to mislead you. She’s not even a liberal!
Delurking briefly.
“Admitting you have a problem is the first step in resolving it, Gavin. You should probably read Michelle/Bryan’s rebuttal though. It might help you understand how you are misrepresenting the facts.”
I’m not sure if you could tell but that wasn’t Gavin.
“The article said they ‘burned and blew up four mosques”
Well that mosque with a hole in its dome sure looks burned and blown up to me. So I would conclude that the article was right.
…while we sit home and do nothing but be bitter.
I think this may actually be the most telling thing annie has ever posted here, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it under her own umm… “name”.
[…] (With hanx all around to Doctor Biobrain, g in comments, plus various other commenters, and the Academy and my homie L’il Half-Dead.) […]
blegh. that old beat up whore can’t even post under her own name anymore.
notice there are no pictures of her leathery visage on her site – just her legs. tina turner is ancient, but she had nice legs to the end. same with the golden girls’ resident slut. nice legs a young, attractive woman do not make.
annie is starting to catch the blah’s about blogging. read her recent posts, and you will see that she can no longer stand to tell all of us dumbass heathens how right she is, and how wrong we all are. we are just unchristian idiots that refuse to listen to her wisdom and/or bow before her legs.
if god was looking for his representative of christianity on earth, he sure made a huge mistake if he chose the hypocritical old hag annie.
just sayin’.
If I’m reading correctly, Our Brand New Troll Kevin was completely taken in by one of our senior trolls, sock-puppeting as Gavin…. Hot Troll-On-Troll Action!!
Sometimes, the funny just shows up on your doorstep. Demonstrating that the Sadly, No policy of tolerance of FruitCakes and Pies named Ann and variations thereof, as well as their obsequieous hangers-on, is an effective strategy.
The fact that it is also the lowest-effort response is just gravy, and deserves another Steel Reserve.
“If I’m reading correctly, Our Brand New Troll Kevin was completely taken in by one of our senior trolls, sock-puppeting as Gavin…. Hot Troll-On-Troll Action!!”
Yup, tard vs tard in a hot 69…
The virtue of annies legs is much exaggerated. She has cankles.
For all of the character assassination going on here you simply fail to challenge two obvious points:
– The AP reported that witnesses had said the four mosques were destroyed. The mosques were, in fact, not destroyed – although it is quite obvious they were damaged. No one contests that. Most five year olds, however, understand that there is a clear difference between destroyed and damaged. Your attempt to blur the lines between those two distinct terms are disingenuous and hardly as funny as you think.
– The AP reported that witnesses had said that six Sunnis were burned alive. This story has never been corroborated. In fact, it remains disputed and unconfirmed.
Further, it was entirely legitimate to question the source of the original AP story, given that parts of it have been proven untrue or suspect. Hopefully, the continuing investigation of this will shed more light than heat. Unfortunately, it seems that folks here want little more than to pour gasoline onto the fire.
BTW: What ever happened to civility? Calling Malkin a “frigid dyke” and asking about her kids? That must have taken a lot of class. In fact she does have kids. It would help if you displayed common human decency towards those with whom you disagree as opposed to simply attempting to destroy their character and smear them.
Regarding Donna Arazie’s “vblog”, it has to be pointed out (as most of its critics failed to do) that this lame attempt at appealing to the web teen market is part of AP’s so-called ‘ASAP’ effort, which is almost entirely separate from the day-to-day newsgathering business. ASAP targets that elusive 18-35 demographic which allegedly prefers fluffly web video a la Arazie over real journalism – or at least some grey-haired AP execs think it does. Don’t lump this aberration in with the AP’s otherwise solid journalistic output.
And regarding the mosque/Jamilgate story: get over it people, it happened, Jamil exists, time to come up with a new MSM conspiracy…
CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[…] course, as Michele Malkin proved, the damage to the mosque in 2006 wasn’t nearly as mad as those treasonous traitors in the […]
[…] only it were so. The political establishment never let Dan Quayle live down his fateful misspelling of […]
I cannot beleive that anyone, anywhere at this time in US history that anyone gives a flip about Palin’s accent. Who are the morons that live around us that would even question such a thing when the USA is stariving for food, gas and assistance and continues to support a war?
I cannot beleive that anyone, anywhere at this time in US history that anyone gives a flip about Palin’s accent.
Psst: comedy site. Accents are zee funnee, no?