You Say AM, I Say PM, Let's Call the Whole Thing Et Cetera

Wayne Madsen, "investigative journalist and columnist," and co-author of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II," is reporting at Counterpunch that:

Air Force One touched down at Baghdad International Airport, under cover of darkness, at 5:20 AM Baghdad time. Bush was on the ground for two and a half hours, his plane departing Baghdad at around 7:50 AM.

Err, no. Change all those AMs to PMs and then you'd have something like a factual story. But then Madsen wouldn't be able to write this:

Considering that it likely took some 30 minutes for Bush to disembark from Air Force One and travel by a heavily secured motorcade to the hangar where the troops were assembled, that means our military men and women were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and non-alcoholic beer at a time when most people would be eating eggs, bacon, grits, home fries, and toast.

Or this:

I would have thought most of the troops, many of whom are support personnel who work relatively normal working hours, would have been more surprised when they were ordered to get up before sunrise to eat Thanksgiving dinner between 6:00 and 7:30 A.M.

And the abysmal and sycophantic Washington and New York press corps seems to have completely missed the Thanksgiving "breakfast dinner." Chalk that up to the fact that most people in the media never saw a military chow line or experienced reveille in their lives. So it would certainly go over their heads that troops would be ordered out of bed to eat turkey and stuffing before the crack of dawn.

Doesn't Counterpunch have any editors?

The trip was announced around noon, eastern time, shortly after Air Force One departed Baghdad. Baghdad is 8 hours ahead of eastern time, so it was 8 p.m. Baghdad time when the trip was announced, two and a half hours after the 5:30 p.m. landing. To paraphrase Daffy Duck, "Ahh, time zone trouble...."

One can only wonder if the investigative journalism to be found in "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II" is as accurate and blah, blah, blah, you know the rest of it.

(This post is expanded from a comment to a Demosthenes post.) Thanks to leeeee for linking to the Counterpunch article (though leeee bought it).

Update: Blogger Patterico has a more joyful take on this.