Jack Kelly Sunday (UPDATE!!)

This'll be a short one - as Jack's column this morning is mostly about how Donald Trump has ruined the GOP.

But in doing so, Jack commits one yuge error - one that right from the beginning necessitates me asking:

Doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly at the P-G?

It's in this paragraph, Jack's second:

A top official at the Clinton Foundation told State Department aides to give special access to a Lebanese businessman who pled guilty to laundering funds for a Nigerian dictator, emails released Tuesday revealed. The dictator, Gilbert Chagoury, pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009.

He's using this example (and another about how the father of the Orlando shooter ended up at a Clinton rally in Florida) to show what Trump should have been talking about rather than the "joke" of how the "Second Amendment People" can take care of Clinton and/or her judicial appointees if she were to be able to "pick her judges" - and so on.

But look at that paragraph.  Jack wrote that an official at the Clinton Foundation told State Department aides to give special access to a Lebanese businessman.  Jack said this guy was found guilty for laundering money for a Nigerian dictator.  Jack then said that the dictator's name is "Gilbert Chagoury" and that he pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Only the name of the dictator was Sani Abacha.  "Gilbert Chagoury" is the name of the Lebanese businessman - PBS did a piece on this in early 2010.

So it's hardly a difficult-to-find piece of information.   How could Jack Kelly and/or his editor(s) get it so freaking wrong?  Doesn't anyone even look at these things before they go to press?

Now let's look at  Jack's first paragraph:

At a rally in Florida Monday, Seddique Mateen, father of Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, sat in a place of honor behind the podium where Hillary Clinton was speaking. Mr. Mateen is not responsible for his son’s horrific crime. But he has some fishy associations. Evidently Hillary Clinton — or some on her staff — have difficulty distinguishing between Muslim patriots such as Army Capt. Humayun Khan, and Islamist terrorists such as Omar Mateen.

The implication is clear: Seddique Mateen was given a place of honor.  Despite the fact that the campaign, upon learning who he was issued a statement that read:

This individual wasn't invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.

Something Jack Kelly decided not to tell you.

But that's a more or less usual sort of sin by omission that Jack Kelly makes.  The first flub, bub, is a sin of even higher proportions - didn't they teach you in Journalism class that you always have to get the easy facts right?  Not confusing a Nigerian dictator with a Lebanese businessman seems to be an easy one.

So I'll ask it yet again:

Doesn't anyone fact-check Jack Kelly at the Post-Gazette?

By Grabthar's frickin' Hammer, why do I have to do it?

UPDATE: A few hours after I posted this, I got word that the P-G issued a correction.  Here it is:

Correction (posted Aug. 14): Businessman Gilbert Chagoury pledged $1 billion to the Clinton Global Initiative in 2009. An earlier version incorrectly said that the Nigerian dictator for whom he laundered money pledged the $1 billion.

You're welcome.  Now can we get someone to do this before Jack's column goes to print?  Maybe, that way, we can save the paper from all sorts of Jack Kelly inspired embarrassments.  Like these embarrassments about:

• Black Lives Matter
• Benghazi
• Slavery
• Torture
• Climate Change

And so on.