I can't let this stand

"Eric Boehlert writes a reprehensible screed for Media Matters, in which he adroitly avoids addressing the substantial questions surrounding Chief Hussein's identity and proceeds to slime and slander, well, everyone in sight who is not satisfied with the AP's ducking of the issue:

By inflating the disputed incident into a monumentally important press story, warbloggers, who have excitedly pounded the story for weeks, convinced themselves that blame for the United States' emerging defeat in Iraq lay squarely at the feet of the press. Specifically, warbloggers claim that American journalists, too cowardly to go get the news themselves, are relying on local Iraqi news stringers who have obvious sympathies for terrorists and who purposefully push propaganda into the news stream -- the way Hussein did with the Burned Alive story -- to create the illusion of turmoil. Warbloggers, who have virtually no serious journalism experience among them, announced that what's coming out of Iraq today is not news at all, but simply terrorist press releases -- "a pack of lies" -- regurgitated by reporters (or "traitors") who want to see the insurgents succeed.

CounterColumn

If you ask me both sides are acting quite childish with the story. Seems to me the only question that matters is, Who the AP reporter is? That's it, all the rest, mud slinging back and fourth add nothing to the story or the real problems associated with reporting from Iraq.

All of a sudden it a left-right tug of words, who can smear who with what irrelevant set of facts. Yet no one seem interested in the truth. The fact that the area in question, that town in north Baghdad is the scene of a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign seems to have fallen off the map while they argue over one event, that's becoming more and more irrelevant every day goes by.
By the time the finish fighting over if someone did see what, hundreds more people are dying or losing their homes, and no one is paying the least bit of attention.