Goodness, gracious, these guys just don’t know to quit while they’re behind. The right is still<\/i> trying to take on CNN’s Michael Ware for his already-debunked hijinks at a recent Baghdad press conference.<\/p>\n
A little background for those just joining us. After John McCain claimed last week that parts of Baghdad were safe for Americans and that Gen. Petraeus travels the city “almost every day in a non-armed Humvee.” Ware, who has spent the last four years reporting from Iraq for CNN, debunked McCain’s nonsense<\/a>. This annoyed the right, who believed correcting McCain’s mistakes demonstrated a bias.<\/p>\n A few days later, when McCain was in Baghdad for a press conference a (misguided) photo-op, Drudge reported that Ware “heckled<\/a>” senators during the briefing, and quoted an unnamed official saying that Ware’s conduct was “outrageous,” because he was “laughing and mocking” lawmaker’s comments. Not surprisingly, far-right blogs pounced<\/a>, trumpeting Drudge’s report. Echoing an implication from Drudge’s piece, Power Line<\/a> went so far as to suggest Ware may have been “drunk.”<\/p>\n Ware denied the unsubstantiated claims, insisting he hadn’t even opened his mouth at the press conference. (The briefing abruptly ended when Ware raised his hand to ask a question.) A video of the Q&A<\/a> proved that Ware was right and Drudge was wrong. The right had flubbed another one, and we all had a good chuckle.<\/p>\n Except the same cast of characters continues to look for fire where this is no smoke<\/a>.<\/p>\n A group of conservative political weblogs offered new evidence in continuation of their allegation that CNN reporter Michael Ware disrupted a Sunday press conference in Baghdad with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Congress members. However, RAW STORY learned from the writer who reported the article that was the basis for their claims that she observed “no disruption of the press conference.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The article was a story from Agence France-Presse reporter Jennie Matthew, who noted that a reporter in the back of the press conference had “giggled” in response to some of McCain’s unintentionally funny remarks. “See?” conservative bloggers said. “There was giggling! Ware was lying!” He didn’t, said the AFP reporter. “As far as I’m aware there was no disruption of the press conference at all,” wrote Matthew from Baghdad. “The reporter who giggled at the back was not Michael Ware, whom I don’t remember giggling or making any kind of disturbance. I think I remember him wanting to ask a question, but the congressmen ended the news conference.”<\/p>\n
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\n“It seems to me that the AFP story provides evidence that tends to support Drudge’s account,” Power Line argued<\/a>. RedState added<\/a>, “If [Ware] laughed or scoffed, he lied to us and to his employer.”<\/p>\n