CNN - Shamelessly Arrogant

I have been following the events surrounding the tape put forth by CNN supposedly depicting a 12 year old child dying as a result of an IDF rocket attack. Said child was playing on the roof, which in and of itself makes no sense at all, bearing in mind Gaza is a war zone.

There are multiple versions of the story line, depending on where you viewed the video. Charles Johnson of LGF has done a superb job rounding these up in one place for critical viewing here. What as a minimum should strike the viewer as questionable is the lack of damage to the roof that was supposedly hit by the IDF. There is some rubble, mind you, but the roof and building are still quite intact. An attack such as the one being claimed should have rendered this building a pile of stone.

The second issue is the medical procedure being performed on the child. This is supposed to be CPR. Chest compressions during CPR are quite violent in order to be effective. This is mere tapping - and the tapping is being done in the wrong location to boot (stomach rather than sternum). Moreover, they are not respirating the victim which makes CPR utterly useless.

I find it striking that a victim who reportedly had "shrapnel" all over his body and a severe head injury doesn't have much in the way of wounds, nor much in the way of bleeding. Blood should be everywhere, especially if CPR is being performed. The Doctors working on our patient are quite clean.

Speaking of Doctors, the European one (the one pandering to the camera) is Mads Gilbert. Strangely, no one in the MSM finds it necessary to let the world know Dr. Gilbert is a card carrying communist and Hamas sympathizer. Read more at the Swedish blog Pophoger. The humanitarian Doctor also supported the 9-11 attacks, this information is curiously absent from the pages of CNN (or any of the other outlets quoting this guy and there are plenty of them).

CNN has responded to the criticism of this video by saying it's genuine because, well the people who filmed it say it is so, therefore it must be!

"It's absolute nonsense," Paul Martin, co-owner of World News and Features, said of accusations leveled by bloggers at videographer Ashraf Mashharawi.

"He's a man of enormous integrity and would never get involved with any sort of manipulation of images, let alone when the person dying is his own brother," Martin said. "I know the whole family. I know them very well. ... [Mashharawi] is upset and angry that anyone would think of him having done anything like this. ... This is ridiculous. He's independent."

So who is this Paul Martin character? He is the co-owner of World News & Features. Much about this is posted on LGF here. Mr. Martin contacted Charles Johnson in order to defend this work - but chose instead to issue a prepared statement (comment 13) on the blog Augean Stables (in response to blog owner Richard Landes' analysis and excellent call for the rushes of the video). Mr. Martin's rejoinder falls flat. Instead of offering proof, he uses words to make the reader feel ashamed of themselves for even questioning the subject at hand. He also opens doors to more inquiries into the video rather than shutting the doors on the questions currently asked. It would seem to me, the prudent thing for CNN to do is remove the video citing "questionable" authenticity with the promise to repost should it be discovered, after painful investigation, that the situation was truth. But that is too much like right, so I am not holding my breath.

Ed Morrisey at Hotair is following this, as is Powerline. As we would expect, Charles (Head Honco) and the Lizard Army (Honco division) are all over this in ways that should make CNN hide their heads in shame for their lack of fact finding or even the barest minimums in fact checking.