The Black Republican

In a hilarious article at littlegreenfootballs, Charles Johnson points to an AP article so utterly without merit as a news story it makes the Bush National Guard documents look like extracts from the National Archives.

An Iraqi man who was one of the first people on the scene of the U.S. airstrike targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said he saw American troops beating a man who had a beard like the al-Qaida leader.

The witness, who lives near the house where al-Zarqawi spent his last days, said he saw the man lying on the ground near an irrigation canal. He was badly wounded but still alive, the man told Associated Press Television News.

U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man’s head in an Arab robe and began beating him, said the local man, who refused to give his name or show his face to the camera. His account could not be independently verified.

In a post a few years ago, I pointed out how the MSM was rushing ever closer to flat-out, old-fashioned, 19th-century yellow journalism. We've apparently reached the moment where all pretense to the contrary has dissolved. How many different violations of journalistic "standards" can you find in these three paragraphs?

Hint: The "lizardoids" at LGF do most of the work for you, if you need some ideas.