Surprise! Gateway Pundit Was Completely Wrong On Attempted Smear of Rep. Ellison

First Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft made fun of Representative Keith Ellison's heartfelt testimony about a Muslim first responder killed during 9-11. Then he called Ellison a liar. His evidence? One of his knuckle-dragging right-wing buddies wasn't able to find anything about the story on the google. Unfortunately for Hoft, other people who actually know how to do basic research looked into the story, and found out that he got it compltely wrong.

From TPM:

But it turns out there were multiple reports in newspapers and on television supporting the fact that there were rumors about Hamdani. In a Sept. 21, 2001 interview with CBS, Hamdani's mother said they were "having troubles coping with it because we can't go outside without having people give us looks and have this feeling that, 'Hey, you're to blame for this.' It's, like, we're being targeted for something we didn't even do."

As Shaffer points out, a Oct. 12, 2001 New York Post story titled "Missing -- or Hiding? Mystery of NYPD Cadet from Pakistan" (which no longer exists online) reports that "investigators for the FBI and NYPD have since questioned the family about which Internet chat rooms he visited and if he was political." (His mother called that article "slander" in an interview on Democracy Now following the hearing yesterday.)

Then the New York Daily News reported on April 6, 2002, that the "story of a Pakistani-born Muslim man living in Queens who was unexpectedly missing after Sept. 11 quickly took on sinister implications."

The New York Times reported on March 9, 2003, that "ugly rumors circulated: he was a Muslim and worked in a lab; he might have been connected to a terrorist group. Months later the truth came out.

Don't expect an apology from Hoft, though. He likes to keep his readers stupid, uninformed, and perpetually angry. Otherwise, how else could they stand to read his garbage?