Why Are We Back In Iraq?

So I see the Malkin(s)-led bukkake fest against the AP for using a source who supposedly didn't exist is coming to an end since the source actually does exist, but the wingnuts couldn't fathom that a name translated from Arabic might actually be spelled in multiple, similar ways in English. Oops! Looks like the rabid ones among us need to sharpen up their research skills a bit... We'll start with "al Qaeda," "al Qaida," and "al-Qa'ida." Which one is correct? They all are, stupid!

But I've got another issue.

Last summer, there was an AP story that gathered up some fanfare with conservative bloggers; certainly not a big scoop. Basically, the AP quoted military "experts" saying that the extra armor for Humvees was, in fact, making Humvees more dangerous instead of safer. Naturally, wingnuts who wanted to stick it to Democrats for using the armor our troops lack as a political story trumped this AP scoop as proof that Democrats were killing troops in order to get votes.

There was one slight problem, though: the AP failed to note that one of the sources they used, a man named Scott Badenoch, had a serious conflict of interest:

But who is Scott Badenoch? The AP article says that he's "a former Delphi Corp. vehicle dynamics expert," but what the article does not mention is that Badenoch is working for the Georgia Institute of Technology on a vehicle that's aiming to replace Humvees in Iraq. [...]

...The AP, and all of the outlets which have published the AP story, should have let its readers know about Mr. Badenoch's employment history if they are going to base articles off his opinions.

But since the demonization of Humvees means a potential payday for Mr. Badenoch, why should I trust anything he has to say on the matter?

I made note of this in June this year, and absolutely no Republican blogger responded me and admitted that the AP fucked up. Yet when the AP publishes a story that doesn't go their way, these same Republican bloggers will scream up and down about the AP being biased and pulling false names for sources out of thin air and how this is a huge issue and blah blah blah...

Honestly, the only thing I've learned from this affair is that contradictions don't causing spontaneous combustion because, if they did, the red states really would be red.

[h/t: RoxPop]

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