AP Reporters: Painters of Fiction

Michelle Malkin notes that there are now five groups that have been "unable to confirm the existence of a Captain Jamil Hussein at Yarmouk." Besides her, the "other four are CPATT, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior (MOI), Marc Danzinger's team, and Eason Jordan's team."

Possible candidates for "Captain Jamil Hussein": Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, Jamil Ghdaab Gulaim, Jamil Ghdaab Ghulaim, or indeed Jamil Hussein, but not as a police captain, but instead as a Sergeant.

A little bit of "Hussein" here, a shade of "Gulaim" there... When you are never obligated to prove your claims, why not throw in a little "Gholaiem" as well?

It should be clear from all of this that AP writers are merely story painters, with palettes as large as the earth itself. A painting can be made, or a "trend" created, out of stringing together facts from any set of random people in the world. If you wanted to write a story claiming the 1920s-era flapper style is now all the rage, a shade of "teenager Sarah Wilson likes flapper clothes" here, a touch of "fashion watchers are observing..." there, and you've made a whole new painting out of shoddy-at-best sources, ones you'll likely never have to verify. In the process, you've just proven the existence of the biggest thing to hit the fashion world since blue jeans.