Newsbusters takes the NYT to task for ignoring the result of the Enderlein-Karsenty case. (Newsbusters acknowledged that the result was covered half-heartedly in the NYT’s blog.)
Newsbuster’s author Warner Todd Huston asks:

So what gives, New York Times? Why the reluctance to cover this new twist in the al-Dura story that you have used so many times in the past to support Palestinian terrorists? You have used this tale to beat the Israelis up for 8 years, now. But, we have final proof that this is a faked video. The Jews didn’t kill little Muhammad al-Dura.

( via memeorandum )

Instapundit answers (with a question):

Because it opens the door to suggestions that this wasn’t an aberration, but the norm in Mideast coverage?

It’s a topic I wrote to the Times’s public editor about two months ago. At the time I wrote:

As I’ve shown above the Times accepted a narrative that shaped a lot of its reporting at the time. One piece of that narrative was exposed quickly. In another case a Times reporter used a highly suspect statement of an interested party to support the narrative. Now another part of the narrative has been shown to be suspect. At least in the name of accuracy one would hope that the Times would look into the case and what it implies.

In addition to the immediate issue of the origins of the “Aqsa intifada”, the case calls into question the widespread use of local stringers who may be more interested in promoting an agenda than in accuracy. The Times’s lack of curiosity in this case reflects poorly on its commitment to getting the story correct.

I still have not received a response from Clark Hoyt. I don’t think that accuracy is the main goal of the NYT.

This failure doesn’t just apply to the NYT but to nearly every major media outlet in American.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Rochus Misch is nostalgic about his former boss.

Misch recalls:
“He had a deep and quiet voice. There was no need to be scared if you made a mistake”

His boss

particularly enjoyed the parties thrown by his wife

and the boss was something of an egalitarian:

Nobody saluted their higher-ranking colleagues within the building.

And given that he worked for his boss in Berlin during the Nazi era, well, his boss was quite open minded. One of his boss’s

favorite songs was composed by a Jew, and revealed that his personal cook was not a “real Aryan”

His boss even “had a small fund of jokes,”

His boss though wasn’t a terribly sensitive sort as he

“… cracked jokes about concentration camp inmates.”

Actually Rochus Misch’s boss was Hitler, who was evil incarnate. By presenting these impressions through Mr.Misch’s eyes news organizations are minimizing the enormity of Hitler’s crimes.

And no, the sentence:

The war crimes that occurred under Hitler’s leadership, including the Holocaust, go almost unmentioned in the book.

doesn’t sufficiently detract from the narrative of an old man reliving the glory of his youth.

Back in 1983, Commentary magazine published “Interrogating Eichmann” taken from a book by Avner Less, who’s job it was to build the case against Eichmann.

The book itself was reviewed by the New York Times. Two paragraphs in the review stick out in particular. First there’s Less’s description of Eichmann.

”My first reaction when the prisoner finally stood facing us in the khaki shirt and trousers and open sandals was one of disappointment. I no longer know what I had expected -probably the sort of Nazi you see in the movies: tall, blond, with piercing blue eyes and brutual features expressive of domineering arrogance. Whereas this rather thin, balding man not much taller than myself looked utterly ordinary. The very normality of his appearance gave his dispassionate testimony an even more depressing impact than I had expected.”

Then there’s this incident which still boggles my mind:

There is unexpected drama in the relationship between the police captain and his prisoner. Eichmann respected his interrogator while trying to save his own neck. He felt that one uniform was speaking to another, that rank had its privileges, even for a prisoner. The reader watches for the cat-and-mouse interplay. When Captain Less tells him that his father had been deported to Auschwitz by Eichmann’s own headquarters, Eichmann opens his eyes wide and cries out: ”But that’s horrible, Herr Captain! That’s horrible!”

So the Nazis did not come out of central casting. If anything their appearances seemed to have inspired Hannah Arendt’s “banality of evil” observation. But in Avner Less’s telling, the ordinariness of Eichmann served to underscore the enormous evil he had committed. In the recollections of Rochus Misch, the ordinariness he describes allows him and the reporters covering him to put a soft focus around the Holocaust. They are sentimentalizing genocide.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Hezbullah didn’t even have to hold up its end of the deal fully, and yet, the prisoner exchange is going ahead.

The Israeli Prison Service transferred Monday morning four of the Lebanese prisoners slated for release in the framework of the upcoming exchange deal with Hizbulllah from the Ashmoret Prison to the Hadarim Prison, where terrorist Samir Kuntar, who is also included in the deal, is held.

The four prisoners, who had been held at Ashmoret since the Second Lebanon War, were taken to Hadarim by van at around 10:40 am.

Lebanese newspaper Al- Safir reported Monday that the prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hizbullah will take place on Wednesday, at 9 am at the Nakura crossing, located north of Rosh Hanikra. German mediator Gerhard Konrad is expected to be present during the exchange.

And the IDF thinks that after the swap, Hezbullah might, gee, try to kidnap more soldiers or attack Israel or something. Because it’s not like they’ve ever done it before.

Israeli security establishment officials fear Hizbullah will boost its rearmament efforts and may look to escalate the situation along the northern border following the implementation of the upcoming prisoner exchange deal.

The officials believe, however, that Hizbullah is wary of a harsh Israeli response and will therefore act with caution.

Really? You mean like the caution that’s caused them to rearm to the point where they have more weapons now than they did before the war in 2006?

The organization has been able to obtain more rockets and has increased is caches of short and mid-range rockets by 30% and over – going from having several hundred rockets, to having several thousands.

Since the war ended, Iran has tightened its ties with Hizbullah, making its resources available to it, training and armament wise. Hizbullah’s recruitment capabilities have never better and it has been rapidly increasing in numbers

But it’s so good to know that Ehud Olmert thinks Israel is closer to peace with the Palestinians than ever before. And that he thinks giving up the Golan is the way to achieve peace with Syria. Because it’s working so well with Hezbullah, they’re ready to break out the doves and olive branches.

Oh. Wait.