What has happened to journalism in 2011? Vivienne Walt of Time Magazine has just written a puff propaganda piece on Libya’s Dictator Son Saif Gaddafi. This so called journalist actually apologized for Saif, writing that he has fought valiantly for democratic reforms in Libya. You can’t make this stuff up, no context, no evidence, memo to Ms. Walt: There is no evidence of Saif’s so called attempts at reforms because it doesn’t exist:

Everybody, that is, except him. Looking back — which Saif notes he is loath to do now — he says he had long warned his father’s regime that there would be trouble if they did not implement democratic reforms. Talking to TIME in Tripoli in February 2010, Saif said that Libyans urgently needed open elections and other freedoms — “freedom like in Holland,” he said in that interview. Yet as the bitter internal struggles within Gaddafi’s government dragged on through the years, Saif lost many of his political battles, failing to convince hard-liners of a truly dramatic reform program — and so the seeds were planted for the explosive revolt that occurred last month.

With a tone of bitterness, Saif says he was betrayed “big time” by his closest reformist allies, who ditched him last month and joined the rebel side. Yet he blames above all the hard-liners, who blocked democratic reforms out of “stupidity,” he says. “We talked about everything in the past and we were so hesitant. The terrorists took advantage of this.”