OBAMA DELAYS WITHDRAWING TROOPS?

The latest Obama news story to sweep the internet is one that comes from that bastion of excellence in journalism, THE NEW YORK POST. Amir Taheri wrote that in July, Sen. Obama spoke with members of the Iraqi government and urged them to delay any agreement with the US to begin troop withdrawals. Every conservative blogger (and several major news sources, including Fox News) not only ran with the story but they all expressed similar outrage over the indignity of wanting to keep the troops there. “WHAT??? Sen. Obama is willing to keep our soldiers over there longer because it helps his political career? It only goes to prove he doesn’t “put country first”! He’ll do ANYTHING to win an election! And besides, he’s a Muslim too!”

Taheri wrote a great article for the Post. Very in-depth, with quotes attributed to the Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari that claimed Sen. Obama made the delay a focal point of his talks with the Iraqi government.

Being a supporter of Obama’s and knowing the less than sterling reputation of the Post for journalistic standards, I wondered about truthfulness of the story.

So I googled the author of the article; Amir Taheri, and found some interesting facts about the man. He was a Senior Editor for a major Iranian newspaper under the Shaw of Iran’s government. He is now a political refugee from Iran who has advocated for the overthrow of the present government. He is also an advisor to Pres. George Bush. Here is a man who’s ONLY hope of returning to his homeland rests on the hopes that either the US or Israel will overthrow the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Now if that doesn’t raise an eyebrow and make you question the authenticity of this story I don’t know what will.)

Unless of course it’s the number of times he has been caught fabricating sources, quotes and story lines before in his writing. What you ask? He lied? How could that be? I read in on the internet!

Here are the real facts about the man accusing Sen. Barack Obama of meddling in George Bush’s foreign policy.

1) Most famously, on May 19, 2006, Taheri wrote a story for Canada’s NATIONAL POST about a new Iranian law requiring Iranian Jews and other religious minorities to wear colored badges at all times while on the streets of Tehren. This caused an immediate sensation and was picked up by many mainstream media sources and ran as a legitimate story. The bloggers went crazy with this story. But the story was simply NOT TRUE! Within hours the NATIONAL POST was alerted to the problem and had pulled the story from their website, blaming Taheri for misleading them.

2) In 1989, Taheri published a book about the rise and fall of the Shah of Iran entitled “NEST OF SPIES”. Larry Cohler-Esses wrote of the book in THE NATION, that it cited "nonexistent sources," it fabricated "nonexistent substance in cases where the sources existed," and distorted the facts "beyond recognition.” Other than that it was a really nice read.

3) In 2005, he said that Iran’s Ambassador to the UN had taken an active part in the takeover of the US embassy in Tehren in 1979. This too went all over the internet. It was however disproven by the Ambassador’s teacher! "This allegation is false," San Francisco State University professor Dwight Simpson wrote to the New York Post (which had published a Taheri column making the claim). "On November 4, 1979 [the day of the seizure], Javad Zarif was in San Francisco. He was then a graduate student in the Department of International Relations of San Francisco State University. He was my student, and he served also as my teaching assistant." Somebody is obviously lying, and I know who I’m betting on.

So we now have a highly provocative story written by a questionable source with no outside confirmation by any other news source. But that hasn’t stopped Fox News and other media outlets from running with it as if it were gospel. It hasn’t kept it from being the blog of the hour on numerous sites.

It’s hard to decide who you want to blame more for this type of shoddy journalism: The media that doesn’t do it’s job in checking sources or the conservative bloggers who happily spread rumor without thought to truth. Or maybe as Pogo once said, “We have met the enemy and they is us.” You know; US, people like you and me who know better but don’t demand the standard of excellence from our media that we deserve both individually and as a nation.

So if you see this story printed anywhere, let the person promoting it know that you know who Amir Taheri is…and you expect more from them than slander, innuendo and lies. You expect NEWS!