This morning, Memeorandum is dominated by a rightie blogswarm, all focused on this Reuters story:
Report: Obama Threatened to Shoot Down IAF Iran Strike
Mark Langfan / ReutersKuwaiti paper claims unnamed Israeli minister with good ties with the US administration ‘revealed the attack plan to John Kerry.’ — The Bethlehem-based news agency Ma’an has cited a Kuwaiti newspaper report Saturday …
A Bethlemen-based “news agency” quotes a Kuwait newspaper? Seriously?
And yet, here it is:
And there’s more. Click for original page.
The problem with this story isn’t its credibility. It’s its INcredibility. Listen to the consecutive paragraph leads:
- According to Al-Jarida*, the Netanyahu government took the decision to strike Iran some time in 2014 soon … [* “a Kuwaiti newspaper”]
- The report claimed that an unnamed Israeli minister who has good ties with the US administration revealed …
- Al-Jarida quoted “well-placed” sources as saying that Netanyahu, along with Minister of Defense Moshe Yaalon, and then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, had …
- According to the report, “Netanyahu and his commanders agreed after four nights …
- The sources added that Gantz and his commanders prepared the requested plan and …
And then THESE non-sequiturs to pad out a laughably-sourced “news” item:
- Former US diplomat Zbigniew Brzezinski, who enthusiastically campaigned for Obama in 2008, called on him to shoot down Israeli planes …
- Israel mistakenly attacked the American Liberty ship during the Six-Day War in 1967. And,
- Brzezinski was a top candidate to become an official advisor to PresidentObama, but he was downgraded … [because] Brzezinski’s anti-Israel attitude would damage Obama at the polls.
Seriously? SERIOUSLY? ALL second-hand anonymous sources? (Remember, this is an Israeli news service quoting a Yemeni newspaper, who I’m TOTALLY SURE vetted their anonymous sources with utmost care. Right. (And I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you, while you’re on the line, here.)
What’s next? Citing an Egyptian newsletter? A Syrian blog post? A Yemeni tweet?
This is SERIOUS stuff and a very serious accusation (that Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets attacking Iran) that is ENTIRELY too valuable to the purpose Netanyahu’s scrofulous visit to the treasonous Congress. And, of course NO ONE could possibly consider that a Bethlehem paper you’ve never heard of might be carrying water for Mossad in a disinformation campaign, right?
I mean this is AMATEUR Night in spades. But not to our “Patriotic” righties. Nossirree. They NEVER uncritically publish laughably-sourced stories that fit in to their preconceived ideological bugaboos, right?
A “Bethlehem-based news agency ” that no one has ever heard of quotes an even MORE obscure Kuwaiti paper and that is front page news? Or is it front page MANIPULATION of the news? This is LITERALLY a third-hand story from Reuters. (For shame, Reuters!)
Netanyahu would NEVER attempt media manipulation
And the dream linkage of Zbigniew Brezinsky to “insider” White House strategy because he is “anti-Israel” in a COMPLETE non-sequitur to pad out an absurd news story? Why, any reporter could make that mistake.
I mean, any reporter below the age of eleven and on their first or second story for the school newspaper, having been deemed too incompetent to cover the classic investigatory story of all school newspapers: “What’s your pet peeve?” This disinformation garbage ought NOT to have been published in your local high school newspaper in light of the fantastical sourcing and the outrageous assertions.
So, we have to ask, WHY was it published in the first place, and HOW COME SO MANY FIRST TIER rightie bloggers jumped on it, driving it to the top of the blogworld news?
Disinformation seems the almost inescapable conclusion. Either that or Reuters was having “take your kid to work” day and let the youngsters write and edit today’s news items. This does not pass the smell test on its face, and yet it is “NEWS!” the day before the treasonous invitation of Boehner comes to rotten fruition. Sad to say.
illustration by author ©
Courage.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.