All the fables fit to print

Still more on the National Post badges bungle ...

Taylor Marsh, guest-blogging over at Fire Dog Lake, has a wowser post that confirms what I picked up last week as to how all this got started, complete with a memo from the Post to the Simon Wiesenthal Center signed by a ''jte,'' apparently deputy comment editor John Turley-Ewart.

The National Post has an editorial policy similar to Brit Hume’s at Fox "News." They are interchangeable and far leaning to the right. But the above section I emphasized seems to show that not only is Turley-Ewert asking for confirmation of the Iranian badge story, but a sort of collaboration on promoting the story. Someone I spoke to today confirmed that was indeed their assessment, too.

But who got the Simon Wiesenthal Center to stick their necks out on this bogus Iranian badge story, risking their very reputation and funding credibility, and who had what to gain by doing so?

Could this story have something to do with Douglas Feith’s Office of Strategic Influence PSYOPS plan to plant false stories in foreign press? Sure, that was supposed to be shut down, but was it? After all, Canada is foreign press and once a story gets printed it’s all stops out for spreading the propaganda.

Frankly, I find that her take has the tang of tinfoil haberdashery to it. Still, there's no doubt that the Post would seize on the Holocaust angle to play to their reader base.

Marsh also notes that Taheri, the author of the op-ed piece at the centre of this storm, has issued a news release distancing himself from the Post story.

Regarding the dress code story it seems that my column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun.
As far as my article is concerned I stand by it.

Okey, dokey.

Hat tip to Ross K.

Comments

The Post has still not retracted the story.

Taheri's denial is unconvincing. He is silent on the key fact: there is no mention of badges in the law. (He says it is uncertain how the law will be implemented.)

It looks like the Post toughed it out and the fuss is dying down now.

Let's tally things up, shall we?

The Post largely gets away with it, at some cost to its remaining reputation.

Every anti-Semite amd conspiracy theorist on earth gets another "case" to talk about. (I'm waiting for the charts showing the web of connections between Taheri, Frum, the Aspers, the Wisenthal Center, etc...)

The forces of darkness in Iran get to talk about the perfidy of the West amd the Jews.

Great. Just great.

[RossK]

Re: the tinfoil haberdashery.....

To rearrange and mangle a famous quote from HST on paranoia:

"Just because you're wearing aluminum doesn't mean the Whirlitzer is not flinging out Zombies....."

Or some such thing.

[sooey]

i notice taheri uses the word "modalities" in his news release. it's a fact that you cannot trust ANYONE who uses the word "modalities".

[sooey]

but speaking of words, i made up a new one that i'm throwing out into the blogicon for 5 flurdiflatts/use. it's "christianist". good one - eh? send the 5 flurdiflatts PER USE!! to sooey at sooeyvilletownburg.

[Ted]

A retraction and apology, finally, from the National Post: http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=6df3e493-f350-4b53-bc16-53262b49a4f7.

For those without NP access, Norman Spector has the apology: http://www.members.shaw.ca/nspector4/corr1.htm

And the award for quickest to figure out the story behind the story? Ms Antonia Zerbisias. To quote the Post apologia:

"The story of the alleged badge law first came to us in the form of a column by Amir Taheri. Mr. Taheri. [...] We tried to contact Mr. Taheri, but he was in transit and unreachable."

But they went with the regurgitation of his op-ed piece nevertheless because it seemed plausible and they couldn't reach anyone who denied it.

I guess plausibility is the new standard. No need to actually check the public record for what legislation was passed when plausibility will do.

Ted
Cerberus
http://canadiancerberus.blogspot.com

[Bill-Muskoka]

Antonia,

Do you know on what date the actual law was posted online for the NP, and others, to actually read?

Thanks