Today’s Joint Award goes to an individual with the initials WES and to British-American woman with the initials EJN. That neither of these individuals spell out their names in full is probably the only tiny semblance of an intellect either of them possesses. As regular readers are aware, I’ve spent the past week almost singlehandedly debunking the Daily Telegraph’s phony story about coerced prostitution that has polluted the left and right sides of the blogosphere over the past week. Both sides were champing at the bit to believe any crackpot story that came along to confirm their worst stereotypes about something. For the conservatives, anything that reflected poorly on Europe, especially a European country that double-crossed us on Iraq, simply must be true. For the liberals, any story about forced prostitution or any bad story about welfare or unemployment reform (or, in this case, a twofer) must be true. Neither side exercised the healthy skepticism we rightly expect of the MSM, and ought to be able to expect even more from its blogger critics. Simply put, the blogosphere dropped the ball.

One of the many bloggers to drop this particular ball was Christopher S. Johnson, the author of Midwest Conservative Journal. Like many others, he was quick to pounce on the phony story and regrettably slow to correct it (so far, he hasn’t). Perhaps he’s lost interest in the issue and sees no need to follow up on it; I don’t know. I do know that two of his commenters, after reading my rebuttal and those of others, insisted on perpetuating their unfounded story further. The first such example was EJN, who, after being advised by another commenter that the story was bunk, had this brilliant reply:

Well, if you love Germany so much, why don’t you marry it? I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I I know you are but what am I?

OK, maybe that’s not an exact quote, but it’s not too far off, either. Here’s the real one:

Lets get back to the post here – if you are so fond of the Germans and what they have done – why not go and live there? Let’s turn the table here. Say you were living in Germany (and I hope not) lose your job – they will send you out to get a sex type related job!!! How would you like that? And have no say in refusing because if you do you lose all your benefits. That is what we are talking about here – but then we do not know you, maybe you would like that!!!! Do you get it yet? Looking forward to a reasonable reply – thanks.

This in response to someone who, like me, demonstrated no particular “fondness” for the Germans, just an aversion to outright lies about them or anyone else. Eventually I found the post myself by following a Google search for “Merchthild [sic, Mechthild - but sic and the correct spelling were not part of the Google search] Garweg,” and threw in my own $0.02:

Sorry to rain on your parade, guys, but this whole story about coerced prostitution in Germany is poop. Here’s an English translation of the article Colleen was probably referring to.

To which the other moron commenter, WES, brilliantly replied:

Read this and then judge ‘poop’. http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/dapfner.asp

To which I say, by all means, do read it, and then come back and explain to us commoners WTF it has to do with the issue of German laws on prostitution and/or unemployment. The answer, of course, is nothing; the Dapfner article is about German and European foreign policy, not any aspect of their domestic policy. Apparently WES figured no one would bother to actually follow that link. I replied:

Nice try, WES, but that page has nothing to do with the topic. Here is what Snopes has to say about the story at issue:

We suspect this is another case where, like a game of “telephone,” a story has been garbled as it has passed from one news source to the next, and somewhere in the rewriting and translating process what was originally discussed as a mere hypothetical possibility has now been reported as a factual occurrence.

Having been caught in a lie, WES would have then retreated with his tail between his legs, had he been in possession of an IQ at or above room temperature. Instead, he replied thusly:

Xrlq, I am aware of BOTH postings. However, I offer http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/dapfner.asp as ADDITIONAL information on a more expansive issue than the specific issue brought up in your rebuttal. I’ll leave you to determine what I mean by ‘expansive issue’. And, we’ll let the readers decide what is or is not germane to the topic.

Presumably, by “expansive issue” he means “Germany sucks generally, therefore, any story that tends to show any particular aspect of Germany sucking, must be true.” I responded:

Whether or not your irrelevant link is germane to a post about German prostitution and unemployment laws is not a matter of other readers’ opinions; it’s a matter of logic. Your link does not touch on that issue, or anything remotely related to it. If you think it does, then perhaps you’d care to explain what, exactly an editorial in one newspaper about Germany’s pusillanimous foreign policy has to do with the credibility of a poorly-researched article that ran in a different newspaper, and was written by an illiterate boob who couldn’t even spell Mechthild Garweg’s first name right. As far as I can tell, the only thing the two have in common is that each has something to do with Germany. Why not bring up beer, sauerkraut and the Autobahn while you’re at it?

Enter the original moron, EJN:

My God – looks like the liberal trolls are back! Xrlq – your post is not worth responding too – obviously you do not get the content of either article beyond the fact that it has something to do with Germany.
[Emphasis added.]

One possibility is that the connection between Germany’s nonexistent domestic policy of coerced prostitution and its actual policy of coddling dictators is, like, obvious. So obvious, that is, that neither EJN nor WES sees the need to explain it. It’s just self-evident; if one thing about Germany truly sucks, then everything sucky that anyone says about Germany must be true, too. the other possibility is that Clark was right.

UPDATE: EJN is even stupider than I thought. When challenged to provide a shred of evidence to back up her lies – say, by disclosing the identity of one single, solitary German woman who can show she was either coerced into prostitution by the unemployment office or who suffered some economic loss for refusing to be a prostitute – she responded not once but twice by accusing me of being “miss informed.” God, this bitch is dumb. Every time she types a sentence, the average IQ of the blogosphere drops by at least a point or two.