Dean's World

So it appears someone decided to take a Hummel figurine picture, paste it over the copied text from a U.S. Embassy memo, and send the newly forged document on to a gullible blogger who claimed it was evidence the entire U.S. supply chain in Iraq was breaking down.

As it turns out, the whole extent of the supposed crisis was a few days bad weather in Kuwait that delayed a food convoy. The supply chain wasn't broken and no one was ever in any danger of going without food, though fresh fruit and other perishables were briefly off the menu.

Ace has dubbed the false icon "Flappy," while on the left the usual suspects are declaring vindication (as they usually do pretty much no matter what) on the basis that the text was lifted from a real U.S. Embassy memo (never mind that the PDF itself is apparently a forgery). In related news, Dan Rather still thinks his MemoGate story was "rock-solid," and the AP won't retract any of the fake reports of atrocities from the mythical Jamil Hussein (yet strangely we don't hear from him anymore), having found someone (the mild inconvenience of having a different name notwithstanding) whom they could claim was him.

As usual, the modus operandi of the lefties is to focus on whatever fraction of the lie can be asserted as true, and then claim total vindication based on that fraction. It's the "glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" method of argument, and while it's effective for keeping murderers out of jail and on our golf courses, it's not a healthy method for discerning truth.

Even in the unlikely (though possible, I suppose) event that Flappy the figurine is in fact an official logo of the U.S. government, it seems likely some law was probably broken here in the forging and leaking of this document, so I'm sure all the Fitzmas Elves will be demanding someone go to prison over it, just as they did when Sandy Berger stole national security documents and William Jefferson hid a $90,000 bribe in his freezer Scooter Libby remembered conversations differently than reporters he talked to.

I got a note recently from someone working in Iraq about the recent brouhaha over over "flappy" and the supposedly fake, but actually real, memo about food disruptions for some serving in Iraq:

The blogosphere has already made way too much about the embassy memo regarding food supply delays, to say nothing of the abusive ad hominem garbage that has passed for commentary on this subject. but for the record, it was real -- the whole thing, "hummel figurine" and all. If you like, I can send you the emailed version I and the countless other employees at the embassy here received -- with your word that you will not publish my name or email address. But suffice to say, what was sent as an "all hands alert" was exactly as it appeared on Iraq Slogger and on Larry Johnson's blog. I work on the military side, rather than state, so I couldn't begin to explain all the oddities of the memo. But I will say that the impression people have of US Embassy Baghdad employees being uber professional -- having been disabused of that impression myself -- is quite erroneous.

Yes, the right wing bloggers are correct when they say that this story has been blown out of proportion -- it was a minor inconvenience, merely limiting the choices at the DFAC for a few days. The possibility of embassy staffers having to resort to MREs, as Johnson alleged, was minimal. Ironically, it's people like Ace and Dave Price who own the most guilt in giving this story more attention than it deserves. Well played, fools.

Well I'll let Dave and Ace answer for themselves. I just thought the whole thing was kinda funny, and obviously overblown.

He did send me the memo as he received it, and it looks legit to me. And he is clearly writing from a legit email address to prove it (not the first I've gotten from that particular domain, either).

It's apparent that the lefty side of the blogosphere overreacted as much as the right; the food disruptions were minimal and temporary, not a "still more proof of the utter fiasco in Iraq" that they're so desperate to promote. On the other hand, the forgery wasn't a forgery, just unprofessional, and the righties jumped a little too quick on what was probably an email signature or something.

"Flappy" still made me laugh a lot though.

(By the way, the very fact of this correspondence blows me away. The 21st century is already starting to make the 20th century look like the stone age.)