Fake But Inaccurate

Fairy tales can come true/in the National Review/If you're In The Tank:

On September 25, I filed a post, in which I described a "sprawling Hezbollah tent city" near the Lebanese parliament as being occupied by "some 200-plus heavily armed Hezbollah militiamen"...

Did I physically see and count 200 men carrying weapons? No. If I mistakenly conveyed that impression to my readers, I apologize.

...

Second, with regard to the post I filed September 29, in which I reported that between 4,000-5,000 Hezbollah gunmen had "deployed to the Christian areas of Beirut in an unsettling 'show of force'": My detractors have said this event, "simply never happened," because "every journalist in town would have pounced on that story, and he’s the only one who noticed?"

...

Since then, I have not been able to independently verify that "thousands" of armed Hezbollah fighters deployed to the Christian areas of Beirut in late September, but my sources continue to insist that it happened.

Ben Domenech wept.

(Via Political Animal.)

Update: The Neo Republic has its own Tommy Smith scandal on its hands. And it doesn't involve Marty Peretz.