Former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey

An interesting post at Gateway Pundit:

Cindy Sheehan's Anti-War Marine is a Fraud!
Here is the story of former Marine Sgt. Jimmy Massey as printed in the St. Louis Post Dispatch today. He has been out traveling with Cindy Sheehan on her bus tour across the country. Jimmy is a member of Veterans Against the Iraq War. Jimmy traveled to France where they reprinted his anti-war story. Florida Democrat Frank Gonzalez protested with Jimmy in August.

But, Jimmy Massey really needs to be behind bars! Once you read the gory, hateful details you will agree.

From the St. Louis Post article:

Is Jimmy Massey telling the truth about Iraq? For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who will listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.

In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey has told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally, killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Among his claims:

Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

A tractor-trailer was filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.

Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports. Earlier this year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan, and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.

He wasn't.

Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated - according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions, and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the Post-Dispatch and reporters from The Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

The Post article goes into some detail. The concept of "Fact Checking" just doesn't seem to sink in for some people...