Monday's Douchebag? [CBT]

The Corner is buzzing over a new Pew survey which shows that most journalists identify themselves as liberals. I'm more interested in knowing whether or not most of the writers employed by The National Review identify themselves as journalists, because their collective knowledge of the craft seems to have been gleamed from old Superman comics.

Take this post from Tim Graham.

MONDAY'S LEAD? [Tim Graham]
Robert Moran of the Knight-Ridder reports that there is no evidence that the U.S. clumsily shot up a wedding party last week. These charges of U.S. killing of women and children led the network newscasts Wednesday night. What will they report now? And how much emphasis will they give it?

As usual, one glance at the article linked to by Graham proves that Robert Moran of Knight-Ridder does not, in fact, report that there is no evidence of the US shooting up a wedding party. What Mr. Moran actually reports is that the US military claims there is no evidence of them shooting up a wedding party. In other words, what Graham positions as some sort of definitive, "last word" investigation is actually just a short piece relaying the military's official position.

Making Graham look even more foolish is this AP report, (courtesy of Pandagon) issued early Monday morning.

A videotape obtained Sunday by Associated Press Television News captures a wedding party that survivors say was later attacked by U.S. planes early Wednesday, killing up to 45 people. The dead included the cameraman, Yasser Shawkat Abdullah, hired to record the festivities, which ended Tuesday night before the planes struck.

...

"There was no evidence of a wedding: no decorations, no musical instruments found, no large quantities of food or leftover servings one would expect from a wedding celebration," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said Saturday. "There may have been some kind of celebration. Bad people have celebrations, too."

But video that APTN shot a day after the attack shows fragments of musical instruments, pots and pans and brightly colored beddings used for celebrations, scattered around the bombed out tent.

The wedding videotape shows a dozen white pickup trucks speeding through the desert escorting the bridal car decorated with colorful ribbons. The bride wears a Western-style white bridal dress and veil. The camera captures her stepping out of the car but does not show a close-up.

An AP reporter and photographer, who interviewed more than a dozen survivors a day after the bombing, were able to identify many of them on the wedding party video which runs for several hours.

In the words of Perry White, "Great Ceaser's ghost!"