TOO GOOD TO CHECK

Some righties just loved this story when it ran a few days ago:

Polish Man Wakes From 19-Year Coma

A 65-year-old railwayman who fell into a coma following in an accident in communist Poland regained consciousness 19 years later to find democracy and a market economy, Polish media reported on Saturday.

Wheelchair-bound Jan Grzebski, whom doctors had given only two or three years to live following his 1988 accident, credited his caring wife Gertruda with his revival....

"For 19 years Mrs Grzebska did the job of an experienced intensive care team, changing her comatose husband's position every hour to prevent bed-sore infections," Super Express reported Dr Boguslaw Poniatowski as saying....

Alicia Colon, blogging for The New York Sun, wrote:

One has to wonder what supporters of Michael Schiavo's efforts to end his wife Terry's life think when they see articles like this. The Polish man who awoke after 19 years in a coma was cared for by a loving spouse. Terry's parents would have cared for her as well if her husband had allowed them to but that was not to be.... Jan Grzebski was lucky to be living in Poland.

There were similar reactions from righty bloggers ("Hey JEB! Shove it up your LIBERAL EFFING ASS!"), Christian bloggers ("Contrast Mrs. Grzebski with Michael Schiavo... clearly he did not wish to be troubled by caring for Terri. Eventually he succeeded in starving her to death. Nonetheless, her fight goes on"), homeschoolers ("Yet Terri Schiavo was legally murdered and we couldn't stop it"), and even Opie & Anthony fans ("good thing he wasn't married to Michael Schiavo").

Er, there's just one problem, as noted in The Guardian (read the story free here):

'The 19-year coma' story rubbished

A Polish man reported to have been in a coma for 19 years, in a story that was picked up by the media worldwide at the weekend, is claiming the facts were exaggerated.

... Mr Grzebski, who saw his story unfold first in the Polish media and then saw it repeated around the world, has now said he was never in a coma for 19 years.

"I never said any of those things, I was not in a coma for 19 years, I only spoke to one journalist and what they wrote was not true -- and every time the story was printed new things emerged," he added.

Mr Grzebski said he did have an accident in 1988, but after that he was only in a coma for four years and was then confined to a wheelchair at his home in Dzialdowo in northern Poland.

As I've noted before, Poland recently hosted the anti-gay, anti-feminst World Congress of Families, the education minister is seeking to fire teachers deemed to be promoting "homosexual culture," and the government spokesperson for children's rights called for an investigation of whether Tinky Winky of the Teletubbies is gay.

Gosh, you don't suppose the Polish press would fake a story like this, do you? Perhaps to curry favor with the dominant cultural and political forces in the country? Or just because it's a better story this way?