Today in Racism

Katherine Jean-Lopez explains that National Review Online publishes Thomas Smith's bogus reporting because Arabs are liars:

That’s why I wrote, in my first editor’s note on the subject, that we “should have provided readers with more context and caveats” – the context that Smith was operating in an uncertain environment where he couldn’t always be sure of what he was witnessing, and the caveats that he filled in the gaps by talking to sources within the Cedar Revolution movement and the Lebanese national-security apparatus, whose claims obviously should have been been treated with the same degree of skepticism as those of anyone with an agenda to advance.

As one of our sources put it: “The Arab tendency to lie and exaggerate about enemies is alive and well among pro-American Lebanese Christians as much as it is with the likes of Hamas.” While Smith vouches for his sources, we cannot independently verify what they told him. That’s why we’re revisiting the posts in question and warning readers to take them with a grain of salt.

Well, what can you say about that?

Consider the "caveats" that she's saying the piece should have contained. Something like "this is all unverified information coming from a source I regard as unreliable" would be a mighty odd caveat to add to a story. If the information is unverifiable and the source is afflicted by the "Arab tendency to lie" (European-descended people are well-known for never lying) then why are you printing it? And how is it that all these other Lebanon-based reporters are capable of operating in an environment filled with lying Arabs without falling for stories about made-up Hezbollah invasions?

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