By Debbie Schlussel

Last week, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, admitted he lied and flat out made up a story about seeing dead bodies. He pulled a Brian Williams, and he got away with it. Incredibly, he got a Peabody Award today, too. The question is, what did Engel lie about and flat out make up when he’s repeatedly covered Israel and its defense against Islamic terrorists, including HAMAS and Hezbollah?

Late last week, NBC News had to outscoop the New York Times when it learned that the Times discovered that Engel reported he’d been kidnapped by Shi’ite terrorists (who backed Syrian leader Bashar Assad) instead of the real identity of his captors, the “moderate” Sunni Free Syrian Army (FSA) “rebels.” This was a significant “mistake” and difference because the FSA were the “freedom fighters” on whom John McCain, Barack Obama, and Engel himself had been constantly pimping us as the alternative to Assad and ISIS–and many of whom have since joined ISIS. It turns out that Engel and NBC News knew very quickly after they aired that his series of stories about his kidnappers’ identities were false. But the news network never corrected itself, not wanting to have egg on its face and discredit its brand a la Brian Williams. Still, the coverage of Engel’s “misreporting” was attributed to an innocent mistake.

The thing is, while that was the headline story in the media, the real story is actually something else, something bigger: that Richard Engel deliberately lied about the events of his “kidnapping,” which was staged by the FSA. (FSA fighters who kidnapped him posed as Shi’ites and then other FSA fighters posing as themselves “rescued” him.) In an article he wrote for Vanity Fair, Engel claimed that he saw dead bodies. In fact, Engel now admits he made up stories about seeing dead bodies. He admits he never saw any dead bodies. From the New York Times:

In his Vanity Fair article, Mr. Engel described one of his captors lying dead. In his statement Wednesday, he acknowledged that he did not see bodies during the rescue.

Vanity Fair has since acknowledged that it had to change and “correct” Engel’s fairy tale. But not NBC, which hasn’t done a thing.

Despite admittedly making up stories–Hey, Just Like Brian Williams!–there’s been no apology for that, no mea culpa over the lies, and no disciplinary action for Engel. Nothing, despite the fact that this establishes for certain that you can’t believe a single thing this schmuck “reports.” He just makes things up. How the heck does this guy still have a job????

And since Richard Engel admits he lied to NBC News viewers about seeing dead bodies he never saw, it raises the question: WHAT ELSE DID RICHARD ENGEL LIE ABOUT?

Engel is NBC’s main presence in the Middle East. He’s repeatedly the chief correspondent in covering Israel and Israel’s defensive wars against HAMAS and Hezbollah. (There is also NBC’s HAMAS-propagandist-in-residence, Al-Jazeera refugee Ayman Mohyeldin, whose lies are a given.)

How many “dead bodies” that didn’t exist did Richard Engel manufacture out of whole cloth during his coverage of Israel? How many other things that didn’t exist did Richard Engel fabricate?

We’ll never know. But rest assured that a leopard doesn’t acquire his spots at age 41. This lying, this fabricating, this prevarication has been a lifelong habit for Richard Engel. He didn’t just start making up dead bodies and other nonexistent things at NBC News after he was “kidnapped.” He’s been doing it all along. People are generally consistent in their ways.

And so, anything Richard Engel has ever said–anything he’s ever “reported”–can be presumed to be false, just flat-out made up.

And, from now on, you can’t believe Richard Engel on anything.

If he says the sky is blue, it’s probably hot pink.

Alhamdulilah [praise allah], another useful idiot for the jihad, who’s not really an idiot, but he’s quite useful.

***

Incredibly, Mr. “I See Dead Bodies,” Richard Engel, received a Peabody Award today for “truth” in news coverage! What’s next, an award to the Castro Brothers for “humanitarianism”?

NBC News and its chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, were awarded a news Peabody for their continuing coverage of ISIS. The honor comes just days after Engel revealed that newly discovered information had led him to revise his account of his 2012 kidnapping in Syria.

Well, maybe Peabody Awards really aren’t concerned with truthful news coverage:

“Winners . . . demonstrate how new avenues and approaches to storytelling can have a major impact on how we understand truth, reality, and events,” Peabody Awards director Dr. Jeffrey P. Jones said in a statement.

Hmmm . . . that must be psychobabble for “winners demonstrate how lying can make us believe phony news.”

So, Brian Williams is suspended for six months, and yet this guy is getting awards?