quoted:

Yesterday I received an email from Paul Boutin of Slate, asking me to call him, to discuss whether Salam Pax is a real person. I fully understand why journalists have to be skeptical. There's a ton of liars out there, and the Internet is the perfect vehicle for con artists.

This morning I received several emails asking me the same thing: is Salam for real?

Full disclosure: I have a tendency to judge things and people immediately, and then to draw back. I immediately felt that Salam was for real. But...after that, I had my doubts. I never thought that he was a CIA front. Would the CIA have been clever enough to think up a hip dude who speaks quite good English and German?

I went though a period suspecting that he was a Mossad agent. Really. When I rejected that theory, I suspected that he was a Lebanese in London with an intimate familiarity of Baghdad, having a fine old time at my and other people's expense. I pictured him and his friends posting this stuff from London, laughing uproariously at the stupidity of those gullible Americans. I've had my doubts, so I can't blame anyone else for having them.

But over the past six or so months that we've been corresponding, my doubts have evaporated. Completely. OK, there's a chance this could be a hoax but I'm willing to look like an asshole and say that my doubts have totally evaporated.