Michelle Malkin invited to Iraq, former Pajamas Media partner solves immolation mystery

When the Associated Press reported that 6 Iraqis had been burned to death in sectarian violence, Michelle Malkin and the right wing bloggers went on the offensive against the AP. Their main complaint was that the report of immolation was based on a single source, identified as police captain Jamil Hussein, who couldn't be tracked down for confirmation.

So, former CNN chief Eason Jordan invited Michelle Malkin to come to Iraq and investigate the story for herself. Miraculously, within hours of the challenge, a former member of Pajamas Media* found the source. Turns out he's Jamail Hussein, not Jamil Hussein.

NEW YORK Has the mysterious and much-disputed Associated Press source in Iraq, a police captain named Jamil Hussein -- finally been found? His existence has been challenged in the past three weeks from the U.S. military, some Iraqi officials and conservative bloggers in the U.S.

A blogger named Marc Danziger who has followed the debate claimed late Saturday that he believes he has positively identified the captain at the Yarmouk police station, just as the AP had claimed, although (if this checks out) his first name may be spelled Jamail, not Jamil.

Though far from definitive proof, it was strong enough to cause at least one conservative blogger to wonder if those who had mocked the AP might have to eat “a huge shinola sandwich.”

Just Thursday, Eason Jordan, the former CNN news chief now launching a Web site called IraqSlogger, had earned headlines by offering to fly Michelle Malkin to Baghdad to search with him for Capt. Hussein. She had accepted, and the IraqSlogger site now runs an urgent plea for tips about Hussein’s whereabouts in a crawl at the top of its site. [Editor and Publisher]

Imagine that, as soon as Michelle is asked to put up or shut up, one of her colleagues solves the mystery. I sure hope Michelle Malkin has a nice Christmas present picked out for Danziger.

*Correction: I originally identified Marc Danziger as a member of Pajamas Media. In fact, Danziger co-founded Pajamas Media, but he his no longer associated with the right wing online media firm.

Comments

[cfrost]

I was sort of hoping Malkin would go to Iraq and we'd finally, finally! get the unalloyed, unvarnished truth.

[AvengingAngel]

When it comes to Iraq, George W. Bush the MBA President is managing the war like a failed business. For the analysis, see:
"Iraq and the 7 Habits of Highly Defective Presidents."

[Gaijin Biker]

Yeah, but it looks like Malkin is still going to Iraq. She accepted Jordan's invitation and I haven't heard that she's since changed her mind.

[Heraldblog]

Arab names are written in Arabic, and there's plenty of questions about their phonetic translation into English. Jamil - Jamail, potato-potahto. The fighting keyboarders could have had this one figured out a month ago. I hope the AP finds an appropriate Roach Hotel for Malkin during her stay.

[Armed Liberal]

Um, while I was involved in starting up Pajamas, I left before their launch and haven't had anything to do with them since then (other than to defend them from loony charges that they were a CIA front)...

Marc Danziger

[numbertwopencil]

>a CIA front?

Huh? I thought everyone assumed they are a Likud front. Weird.

>Malkin is still going to Iraq

Hmmm, I just don't see it but I guess now she can go and just hang out in the Green Zone since the mystery has been solved. Or, perhaps, she can visit Kurdistan or something. She may be stupid but I don't think she's suicidal.

[Ian]

Mmm, how's that crow?

[Bartholomew]

Well, how on earth were patriots to know that transliterated names might render variant spellings?

[John]

Jamil and Jumail (Jamail) are spelt the same in Arabic, just vowelled differently. Vowel marks are not normally used in written and printed Arabic. Jumail is a diminutive form of Jamil.

[Heraldblog]

I hear crow goes well on pita bread with a hummus dip.

[Scott]

What crow? Bloggers just said it sounded suspicious, and asked for proof of sources. The media will just have to get used to people asking them hard questions, and they will have to be more forthcoming about establishing the authenticity of their information. This is a good thing, especially after the media has been caught with their pants down so many times already! Is it any wonder people don't blindly trust them anymore?

[Horatio]

Michelle Malkin writes:

Journalists in the legacy press are too busy trying to write the Bush administration's obituary to notice that they are writing their own.

MSM credibility, R.I.P.

This doesn't sound like a "hard question" to me, Scott. What do you think? And thanks for that joke about conservatives getting serious about "establishing the authenticity of...information." It's lunchtime here in Chicago and you made milk shoot out my nose.

[CMike]

Marc "Armed Liberal" Danzinger posts.

[Sir Pedant]

While it would be nice to see Malkin have to eat her own hat, the evidence is still being weighed, as is clear from the E&P piece you excerpt.

Just saying, it's a bit early to gloat.

[Tom Hilton]

No crow-eating at TIDOS Yankee. He takes two and two and triumphantly presents a sum of five--that is, the conclusion that the AP's source was a former Fedayeen member named Jamil Hussein, and that the whole thing was Baathist disinformation. That may become the Malkinite party line in the next few days.

[Thers]

Wow, that CY fellow is a bit, uh, excessive. You can never prove a lunatic wrong.

[Sven]

Helena Cobban on IraqSlogger. Looks like Malkin and Jordan deserve each other.

[norbizness]

I've seen more riveting sleuth work in a Scrappy-Doo episode.

[LGSutekh]

The word "Michelle" in KLINGON means, "hail of fiery death".

[Satan luvvs Repugs]

The word "Michelle" in KLINGON means, "hail of fiery death".

Yeah, but in Romulan it means "whiny skank that deserves slapping", so one shouldn't go with a single source in such important matters.

[Paul Hooson]

Nothing the right wing has done within the last few weeks has made be more angry than this nonsense attack on the overall credibility of the news media. War reporters, beginning with Ernie Pyle in WWII, risk their lives to report on war to satisfy the public's very important right to be informed. The right wing failed to report when an AP cameraman was killed a few days ago in Iraq.

The Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker recently found that "incidents" in Iraq are actually under-reported at about 95 a day when 1,100 incidents average actually take place. In addition the number of U.S. dead in Iraq often deletes the 172 wounded in a single day for example, which illustrates that the situation in Iraq is actually far worse than often reported.

Michelle Malkin, "Curt" at Flopping Aces and "The Ace" at Polipundit have been three of the worst offenders with the absurd smear job claims that AP made up the story of the Sunni Mosque attack that killed six Sunni worshippers after around 400 Shiites were killed or wounded in massive car bomb attacks in Sadr City.

"Curt" and "The Ace" attacked the credibility of AP's sources, yet both "Curt" and "The Ace" use cryptic nicknames to conceal their real identities, or why they should be considered as credible sources for news, and use these "cryptic" nicknames to hide behind some very cowardly and outrageous opinions and insults. I've challenged both to come clean with their readers before, and level who they really are and why we should trust their outrageous trash brand of journalism, but both only deleted my ability to post on their sites.

My own blog www.progressivevalues.blogspot.com intends to name a worst right wing journalist of the year award soon. You can bet that Michelle Malkin, "The Ace", "Curt" at Flopping Aces and Anne Coulter will top this year's nominees. The left needs to debunk these right wingers false attacks everytime they pop up with the facts and honest truths. Another site Truthdig is very good at this. A very good progressive site.