AP's Jedi Mind Tricks Wont Work Here

Is AP attempting to use Jedi mind tricks (aka rewriting the Jamil Hussein story out from under the watchful eyes of bloggers) without admitting that they got the so many aspects of the reporting wrong?

Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee thinks so. He's found that the AP eliminated one article that was written by Stephen Hurst on January 4, 2007 purporting that Jamil Hussein is indeed Jamil Hussein.

As we've come to learn through a combination of AP reporting and that of bloggers, Jamil Hussein is not a person per se, but a pseudonym used to identify someone that AP used as a source. He was working in the Iraqi police, but the AP lied and violated its own rules governing anonymous sources, psuedonyms, and attribution. That's the least of AP's worries, as they've yet to account for the factual errors in all those stories utilizing 'Jamil Hussein' as the source. They simply haven't checked out.

Put into plain English, the AP failed to fact check its stories, ran reports without proper attributions to sources using pseudonyms, and is apparently engaging in a whitewashing/rewrite of the history of this sorry episode.

There are two possibilities as to why the file is no longer present. It could be a glitch in AP computer operations - renaming or moving files around. This could be a purposeful act. If it is the former, then restoring the Hurst story is the proper thing to do. If it is the latter, then the AP has some serious explaining to do.

Contacting the AP would seem to be a reasonable thing to do. I have put an inquiry in to see what they have to say about the matter. However, I do not have much faith in getting a response.

Hot Air (just keep scrolling) is all over those who think that proving Jamil Hussein existed was the gotcha moment for those who were hoping to see that the AP was wrong. Sadly, No, that means you folks.

Charles at LGF is also watching intently.

UPDATE:
Bob Owens received email from AP stating that it was a technical glitch and that the file has been restored to the original location. Looks like I called this one.