THE BAGHDAD MUSEUM LOOTING STORY was exploded weeks ago, when it turned out that only about two dozen items, not the tens of thousands originally reported, were looted from the Iraqi National Museums displays. In other words, the original looting stories were bogus. Yet today the factually-challenged New York Times describes the museums as having been “largely gutted.”

Perhaps the former Iraqi information minister is now working as one of the Times’ anonymous stringers? As Jerk Sauce notes: “The article raises some worrisome points about the looting of archeological sites in Iraq. But given the reporter’s – or is it his stringer’s – willingness to misrepresent the museum looting, how credible is this?”

Not very, I’m afraid.

MICKEY KAUS asks:

Where’s Howell? Isn’t it time we heard from embattled NYT executive editor Howell Raines about his role in the Rick Bragg mess, not to mention the ongoing “Blair Witchhunt” and the general turmoil in his newsroom? I think Kenneth Lay was more accessible to the press during the Enron scandal. … Is Raines still in charge?

Insiders are invited to email him tips.

WELL, THIS IS NO SIGN OF PROGRESS:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 27 — An editor whose newspaper was in the forefront of a campaign against Muslim extremism was removed from his post Tuesday, managers at the paper said.

No reason was given for the dismissal of Jamal Khashoggi, who joined the Al-Watan newspaper in March, one manager said on condition of anonymity. . . .

Many Saudis who had hoped that their country was on a path toward change following the terror attacks against three compounds housing foreign workers were disappointed by the news of Khashoggi’s dismissal.

”This is a bad sign,” said Turki al-Hamad, a prominent writer. ”This will be considered a victory by the extremists. It’s like an invitation for more attacks.”

Based in the southern city of Abha, Al-Watan has won a wide readership since its launch in 2000 owing to its liberal editorials and a policy of promoting a higher profile for women in conservative Saudi society.

The firing was at the behest of the Saudi Information Ministry, which means the Saudi royals’ fingerprints are on it. They’re not our friends, they’re major supporters and exporters of Islamic terrorism, they’re almost certainly incapable of reform, and sooner or later they’re going to have to go.

VIK RUBENFELD COMMENTS on Rick Bragg’s experience with bad publicity:

Mr. Bragg is experiencing, doubtless for the first time, how unfair hostile reporting is. Yet this is what the meanstream press has subjected every other business in America to for decades.

Hostile reporting is the result of the sentence all mainstream reporters say, specifically, “To be objective I must be hostile to the subject of the article.” That sentence is false. Hostility as a goal produces only attacks. It does not produce fairness. This is what Bragg, and the press, are discovering under these unfortunate circumstances.

And the Times isn’t even close to getting the full-bore Enron treatment. Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg observes:

Frankly I think Rick Bragg is getting a raw deal given the rules he was told to work under. But I can’t muster much sympathy since the Times represents the height of journalistic goody-goodieness and arrogance.

I suspect a lot of people will feel that way, though I’m not sure it’s entirely fair.

MICKEY KAUS offers a close reading of the Wall Street Journal story I mention below. Howell Raines doesn’t look good.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, Matt Welch observes: “Maybe the Grey Lady needs to open up a few more bureaus in flyover country.” Indeed.

IS PEER REVIEW POOR REVIEW? Ralph Luker thinks so.

THIS STORY will make Jeff Jarvis happy — it’s about plans to offer Iraqis unfettered Internet access. Make it so.

LARRY LESSIG OBSERVES:

For it is bizarre that we increasingly live in this world where every movement is captured by a camera, yet increasingly, ordinary people are not permitted to take pictures with cameras.

He’s right. Malls, stores, and governments are putting up hidden cameras everywhere, even as the list of places you’re not allowed to photograph mushrooms. Screw ’em. If they want to photograph you secretly — and they do — then you should have the right to, er, shoot back. And they should feel lucky that it’s just with a camera.

After all, if they’re innocent, they have nothing to hide, right? That’s what they’re always telling us.

MATT WELCH HAS MORE ON DISGRACEFUL CONDUCT BY IMMIGRATION OFFICIALS — it’s like he’s got an inside source or something! Seriously, this kind of thing is just pathetic, and heads should roll. Will they?

Not bloody likely. But it’s yet another mark against the not-ready-for-primetime Homeland Security apparat.

I’M ENJOYING SOME RARE SUNSHINE out on the law school’s patio while I do some WestLaw research. But there’s more on why the New York Times’ latest scandals constitute the “revenge of the blog” — along with more book-blogging for your beach-reading summer pleasure — over at GlennReynolds.com.

THE ANNIKA SORENSTAM / DONALD RUMSFELD connection.

LOOTING UPDATE: Rich Lowry writes on “the museum sacking that wasn’t:”

If you only read The New York Times, you might think the only truly important recent event in Iraq was the looting of the Iraqi National Museum. For art lovers, this branded the U.S. occupation with the worst of all possible labels, worse than “imperialist,” worse than “illegal” — “Philistine.”

Robert Deutsch, an archeologist at Haifa University and a licensed antiquities dealer, shakes his head at all the coverage of the museum sacking. The Times originally reported that 170,000 pieces had been stolen. “Nonsense,” says Deutsch. He points out that there would have to be “miles and miles” of display area for such a massive amount of material to be readily available for the snatching. . . .

“They just had to have something to complain about,” Deutsch says of the museum hype from skeptics of the war. “The war was fast. It was clean. They found a small place where they can complain.” . . .

“I don’t see any big or significant damage from this looting,” says Deutsch. “It was very small-scale. And the historical value of an antiquity is in its publication. Once it’s published, it’s part of our knowledge.” Thereafter, its value is mostly as an object of art.

(Via Bill Quick).

JEFF JARVIS WEIGHS IN: “What Rick Bragg did was no cause for suspension or the sliming of his career.”

ADAM MICHNIK WRITES ON BEING CALLED A TRAITOR (AGAIN):

A German journalist published an article in the paper Die Tageszeitung in which he claimed that Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, and George Konrad, Europe’s long-standing moral authorities, had suddenly become undiscriminating admirers of America.

I read that article with a twinge of nostalgia. Here we are, together again. Our three names were grouped to-gether for the first time by Timothy Garton Ash in his widely acclaimed essay nearly two decades ago. If I recall correctly, Havel and I were doing jail time then, and Konrad’s books were banned from print in Hungary. Even though we did not meet very often, we maintained a common ground in our reflections on the worlds of values and of politics. We were united by a dream of freedom, a dream of a world infused with tolerance, hope, respect for human dignity, and a refusal of conformist silence in the face of evil. . . .

In answer to this, I guarantee that I have not forgotten about the U.S. intervention in Vietnam or the American support of despotic, anticommunist regimes in Latin America—the perpetual argument of the intellectuals of the Western European left. However, I also have not forgotten that the American defeat in Vietnam resulted in the North’s armed conquest of the South and a wave of terrible repression. I also realize that while condemning the dictatorships of [Rafael] Trujillo or [Augusto] Pinochet, I should remember the dictatorship of Fidel Castro. Brutal power is equally repugnant whether executed under a red banner or a black one. The belief that there was no rightist or leftist torture, no progressive or reactionary torture, was a fundamental principle we lived by. It led us to reject the hypocrisy of the Western left, which proclaimed that even bad communism was better than good capitalism because it was the former and not the latter that led to a bright future.

What, then, is our betrayal? Today we reject the notion of equality between a regime that belongs to the democratic world—even if it is conservative and disagreeable—and a totalitarian dictatorship, whether its colors are black, red, or green. This is why we will never again say that Chamberlain is no better than Hitler, Roosevelt no better than Stalin, and Nixon no better than Mao Zedong, even if we do condemn Roosevelt for Yalta, Chamberlain for Munich, and Nixon for Watergate.

And that, apparently, is treason in some quarters. Then there’s this:

The hatred felt toward America becomes absurd when it ceases to be a critical stance that is normal within democratic discourse and takes up the defense of brutal, totalitarian dictatorships. The so-called peace movements of the Cold War burned effigies of American presidents and genuflected before Stalin’s portraits. We will not repeat such a masquerade today. . . . This is why we are at odds with today’s pacifists: We will not peacefully pave the way for those who committed the crimes of Sept. 11 and their allies.

Read the whole thing — and ponder the depths of the Chirac/Schroeder miscalculation.

A “STRIKING DEGREE OF CONFIDENCE” IN THE MILITARY is revealed in this interesting story from The New York Times:

In fact, researchers and polling experts say, the class reflects a long-building trend that has intensified with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and the successful military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Americans’ trust and confidence in the military has soared, even as it has declined in other institutions like corporations, churches and Congress.

From 1975 to 2002, the percentage of Americans who expressed a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the people who ran organized religion fell, to 45 percent from 68. Those expressing a great deal or a lot of confidence in Congress declined, to 29 percent from 40, according to a Gallup Poll. But also in 2002, Americans who expressed a great deal or a lot of confidence in the military rose, to 79 percent from 58 in 1975.

The positive image is particularly striking among the children and grandchildren of baby boomers, said David C. King, an associate professor of public policy at Harvard and co-author of the new book “The Generation of Trust: How the U.S. Military Has Regained the Public’s Confidence Since Vietnam” (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research).

Perhaps the Times could learn from this example.

RADLEY BALKO WRITES on John Ashcroft’s fair-weather federalism:

The problem with Attorney General Ashcroft — and the reason I write about him today — is that his record as Attorney General thus far has shown him to be a man completely unsympathetic to the tenets of federalism when they happen conflict with his own, personal values. . . .

Ashcroft’s supporters counter that as Attorney General, his job is to uphold and enforce the federal code — whether or not he agrees with a particular law isn’t important. But that’s a bit naïve. Like any other cabinet head, the Attorney General works with a budget, with limited resources. He hasn’t nearly enough capital or prosecutors to go after every infraction of the federal criminal code (which, thanks in no small part to allegedly federalist-minded Republicans, is expanding exponentially). Consequently, Attorney General Ashcroft actually makes policy when he chooses which federal laws he’s going to actively enforce, and to what extent.

John Ashcroft’s decision to devote considerably large swaths of DOJ time and resources to challenging state drug and assisted-suicide laws he feels are too liberal can’t be dismissed with the likes of “he’s just doing his job.” He chose to set examples in California and Oregon because he felt DOJ resources were better utilized challenging those laws than, for example, investigating al-Qaeda sleeper cells.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Roger Simon has some thoughts.

MICROBES ON PARADE: N.Z. Bear is showcasing new blogs. Check ’em out!

LILEKS IS PANNING The Matrix Reloaded. I didn’t see it. Last weekend I saw the #2 movie for that weekend: Daddy Day Care. My daughter and her friend liked it. I thought it was tolerable. It makes a few progressive points about men engaging in childcare despite the disapproval of women, balancing these serious bits with the apparently irresistible hilarity of repeatedly showing a fat man kicked in the balls. Nothing says laffs-a-plenty like a fat guy groaning in agony on the ground. It’s some sort of Hollywood rule.

UPDATE: A lot of people seem to agree with Lileks, as the Matrix box-office took a tumble over the weekend. But Daddy Day Care is still going strong!

MICKEY KAUS has still more on the Rick Bragg story. And Jim Romenesko, back from vacation, has a lot of links, including this one to a Wall Street Journal report that echoes a point made by some emailers here over the weekend (see this post and this one):

The Times says nonstaff journalists are often used to conduct interviews, provide research assistance or help stake out the scene of news events, especially on tight deadlines, but don’t receive bylines when their contribution is routine. They may receive one “when their pieces reflect unusual enterprise or unusual writing style,” according to a written statement provided by the Times.

Indeed, some Times staffers expressed surprise at Mr. Bragg’s suspension because using material from stringers and assistants without giving credit is common practice at the paper, owned by New York Times Co.

(Emphasis added). The story also suggests that Raines knew about Bragg’s relationship with the stringer in question for quite some time and didn’t object. (“‘It wasn’t like Rick was hiding anything from Howell, or anyone else at the Times,’ Mr. Yoder says. Mr. Raines went to dinner at least once with Mr. Bragg and Mr. Yoder, Mr. Yoder says.”) So why, exactly, was Bragg suspended? Is there more to this story?

Kaus, meanwhile, says that Bragg isn’t the issue:

The issue is whether the Times is routinely deceiving its readers into thinking that its stories have the credibility safeguard of a bylined reporter who has actually done the reporting in the story.

The answer to that question is looking like “yes,” isn’t it? Kaus also wonders if Howell Raines (or “whoever is running the show at 43d street”) will “retaliate” against Bragg for not going quietly (Bragg is decrying the “poisonous atmosphere” at the Times and dropping not-so-subtle hints that his discipline is motivated by racial balancing in response to the Blair scandal). Who knows? Given the closed shop that Raines runs, that’s possible. It’s also possible that there’s more to this story than we’ve heard so far — though Bragg isn’t acting like a guy with other charges hanging over his head. Stay tuned for more of “Mr. Raines’ wild ride. . . .”

THE ARAB STREET TURNS OUT:

CASABLANCA, Morocco, May 25 — Tens of thousands of demonstrators chanting “no to terrorism” thronged the streets of Casablanca today, nine days after 43 people were killed in coordinated suicide attacks in the city.

“I am here for myself and for them, the next generation,” said Abdellatif Ghanam, an unemployed night watchman, gesturing to his 6-year-old son. “The people who did those attacks are not followers of Islam in its true sense.”

Interesting.

HONORING THE DEAD: A moving story.

STILL MORE REASONS why “no-knock” raids are not only un-American, but criminally dangerous:

“We must do a better job of no-knock search warrants,” lawyer Norman Siegel said during an October press conference. “Otherwise, someone might wind up dead as a result of how we implement this procedure.”

Today someone is dead. Her name was Alberta Spruill.

Spruill, a 57-year-old church volunteer, suffered a heart attack and died May 16 after flak-jacketed cops broke down her door and lobbed a stun grenade into her small Harlem apartment in a mistaken search for drugs.

Marie Rogers, 62, a retiree from Springfield Gardens, had a similar experience seven months ago, although a stun grenade wasn’t used in the raid on her apartment – and she lived to talk about it.

“When I heard about what happened to this woman, I broke down and cried,” Rogers said. “You would have thought that I knew her. Then I was angry.”

On Oct. 15, Rogers and her husband, Robert, were in their home watching television – “Cops,” as it turns out – when police in riot gear plowed through their front door without warning. When Robert, 64, a retired housing cop, heard the noise, he instinctively went for his licensed revolver, dropped to a knee and waited.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said. “I thought the people coming into my house were trying to kill me.”

Robert is certain he would have been shot if he hadn’t tossed his gun aside before the cops came in. As for the drugs and weapons they were looking for, police found nothing. They had the wrong address.

That ought to be a firing offense, the very first time it happens, for the officers involved and their superiors. If people die, the charge should be murder. If you decide to break down somebody’s door and enter with guns drawn when no one’s life is in danger, then you should be able to offer no defense if anything goes wrong. Because it’s indefensible.

UPDATE: This, on the other hand, isn’t criminal, just pathetic.

GARY FARBER writes that it’s time for Pundit Watch to come back. I think he’s right. How about it, Will?

MICKEY KAUS has still more inside dope on The New York Times’ leadership problems. It’s fascinating stuff.

THERE’S MORE INTERNAL WARFARE AT THE NEW YORK TIMES, according to Howard Kurtz. Kurtz also reports on a plagiarism incident that — shockingly enough — occurred at a different New York paper, the Post.

UPDATE: Charles Murtaugh — in a Bob Herbert-related post that’s currently at the top of his site — reports that the New York Times’ scandals are already having an impact, as Bob Herbert credits his heretofore unheralded assistant, Johanna Jainchill, with an interview. Charles doesn’t miss a thing. And though it may just be a coincidence, the column in which Herbert credits Jainchill is one of Herbert’s better efforts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg notes:

This could be the start of all sorts of fun because I know for a fact Herbert is hardly alone. Maureen Dowd, for example, has a minion who does much of her gruntwork for her as do many other columnists (I used to be Ben Wattenberg’s researcher for example). Let the full-disclosures fly!

Indeed.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Tom Maguire says that Adam Clymer needs to add another correction to his total.

STILL MORE: Jeff Jarvis writes:

Anyway, following up on the latest NY Times scandal, the dateline caper, in which a prize-winning reporter gets sent to detention for not staying long enough at the place from which he dateslines his story…

I know of at least one big newspaper in this country where datelines are meaningless: Rewritemen took the wires and whatever else was handy and wrote stories under datelines as well as their bylines without ever leaving the desk. I was a bit surprised when I first saw this, but it was SOP.

Meanwhile, Gary Farber calls the Clymer piece “dolorous and predictable.” But that’s not a sin at the Times!