pootessa

(La MalKKKin's got your 'hot air' right here, buddy!) 

You would think that any person confronted with a near-perfect record of staggering on-the-job failures would perhaps take a moment to reflect and maybe rethink their career choices.  If you were a soccer player who consistently kicked the ball into their own team's goal, a firefighter who repeatedly sprayed gasoline instead of water on to burning buildings, or a doctor who managed to kill every patient they touched, wouldn't you start to think that maybe you were in the wrong line of work?

The cabal of yahoos on the Right, led by Michelle Malkin, who have dedicated the last couple of years of their lives solely to whacking off to MSM conspiracy theories and savagely dry-humping the corpse of Neoconservatism?  They are not troubled by such doubts.  They seem to be blissfully unencumbered by any sort of self-awareness whatsoever, actually.  Even as they watch every single talking point they have pushed since 9/11 burst into flames and explode, they blithely insist that they have been right all along and that it's only the damn terrorist-loving liberals who have ruined everything.

Several years ago when I was a ward clerk in a public hospital, I was an unfortunate witness to the spectacle of a rather sweet-looking forty-ish businesswoman going into a complete fugue state from an encephalitic fever.  She started screaming and clawing at the faces of anyone who came near her exam room.  Just before the orderlies managed to subdue her, she tore off her hospital gown, ran into the hallway, squatted down and defecated into her hands...and ate it.

The feeling I got in the pit of my stomach seeing that is akin to the feeling I am getting watching the Pajamas Media crowd flog the dead horse that was their prize story this year, the "Who is Jamil Hussein?" canard.

Frankly, I can't look straight at it, anymore, but Greg Sargent?  Do you have something you'd like to share with the class?

Oh, dear. It will be interesting to see what Malkin, Curt of Flopping Aces, Powerline Blog's John Hinderaker, and all the other merry wingers who promoted this story have to say about this new development. Of particular interest will be to see what the hapless Eason Jordan, the former CNN chief who actually offered to fly Malkin to Iraq so the two could hunt for Hussein together, has to say about it.

These bloggers actually managed to kick up enough dust around this story that some mainstream news orgs were suckered into paying attention to this attack on one of their own and granting it a semblance of legitimacy. The truth, however, is that with a few exceptions, the righty bloggers and columnists pursuing this attack were never serious about discovering whether or not that original burned-alive episode happened. Their real goal was to scapegoat an enemy within at a time when their cherished war was devolving into a disaster, to discredit the messenger, and to sow doubts about the validity of the war imagery being brought back by that messenger -- imagery that was turning the American public against the conflict and causing their beloved leader and party to sink ever deeper in the polls.

Dave Neiwert?

And the funny thing is, not one of these people is willing to stand up and admit that they were wrong. None of them has enough integrity to stand up and apologize to the Associated Press and its reporters for openly accusing them of engaging in gross journalistic fraud, and for doing so on shaky grounds that revealed a complete lack of understanding of the nature of journalistic work -- particularly the relationship of reporters to officialdom.

Dave, you know I love you and that I think you're one of the best bloggers going, but surely you're not so naïve as to expect rational, responsible behavior from the Malkinites?  They are not rational people.  They are not even adults.  They are squalling, feuding toddlers with driver's licenses and mortgage payments.  They may have been toilet-trained, but after that the cognitive development stopped cold. Really.

Brad at Sadly, No! knows the score:

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

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

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

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

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

I believe that with this statement Brad has just made the most sober and clear-eyed assessment of the state of affairs over in Right Wing Woof Woof Land that I have ever read.  Kudos.

Maybe Malkin views her impending showboat tour of Iraq as a species of career rehabilitation à la Judy Miller's stint (stunt?) in the pokey.  Funny, but I think that Malkin's plan, at best, will work out about as well.  The words of Murray Waas spring to mind, "humiliated and discredited shill".  I can't imagine why.

For our final word on this sorry chapter in the history of the ultimate decline and fall of Righty Bloggers, we'll go to Editor and Publisher:

Meanwhile, Brian Whitaker, Middle East editor at The Guardian of London since 2000, concludes his summary of the latest twist today this way: "Because of the number of reporters quoting Jamil Hussein, the bloggers were in effect alleging a generalised conspiracy by AP's Baghdad staff to deceive the news-reading public - an idea so unlikely as to be almost incredible.

"Interestingly, something similar happened with the hoax allegations relating to the Lebanese ambulances. As the bloggers pursued their claims, the only way they could support their claims was by implicating more and more Red Cross workers in a conspiracy to deceive - a conspiracy that, in the end, existed only in their imaginations.

"Back in Iraq, the good news today is that Capt Jamil Hussein really does exist, and the interior ministry's spokesman has finally and officially confirmed it. The bad news is that they have issued a warrant for his arrest for 'having contacts with the media.'

"Congratulations, bloggers. He won't be talking to AP again now."

Oh, riiiiiiight.  The Lebanese ambulances!  I remember that one.  What a knee-slapper that was!  Boy, the hits just keep coming, don't they?  Don't ever change, oh, you tireless footsoldiers of the Pajamahadeen!  You guys are a fucking riot.  What would we ever laugh at without you?