Michael Schrage offers his two cents about what I’m missing:

Subject: You are, indeed, missing something – I wrote this piece for the washington post a year ago. It speaks for itself…but the jamail hussein saga is a classic example of unprofessional, plame-like hypocrisy by the AP… They named their source – many, many times – and it was challenged…there was a myriad of ways they could have handled the query: they could have called in a favor and gotten one of the AP-member newspapers in iraq to ’interview’ the guy to vouch; they could have done a podcast with the guy; if the bloggers still insisted the guy was a fraud, then AP itself would be literally accused of not just perpetrating a hoax but perpetuating one… …the bottom line here is a vile hypocrisy: the msm will protect their own people – jill carroll, for example – but they will freely publish the names of vulnerable iraqis who are (were) sympathetic to the US… …the principle here has nothing to do with truth, accuracy or public safety – it has to do with partisanship… to make a comparison from nro itself: it’s nice that the new york times has finally published a correction for its flawed Sunday magazine story about abortion – isn’t it a pity it wouldn’t have done so without a column from its ombudsman…likewise, it’s wonderful that AP finally vouches for their source – isn’t it a pity that it does so in a manner that increases the man’s vulnerability…? …partisan – and unprofessional… Michael schrage (ex-washington post) UPDATE: Link Fixed. Sorry.