Redstate

Suddenly, CBS distorting the words of Ken Starr seems rather small.

< understatement>

Methinks the fallout from this is going to be big.

< /understatement>

Film at 11.

Not only does it make CBS's latest distortion look mild, it makes Dan Rather's creative propaganda/journalism look like child's play.

If heads don't roll on this one, Newsweek will take the same dive as CBS if not worse.  It should be sued by every one of those victims, including the families of any serviceman who dies because of irresponsibility.

Seems to me that someone in the Pentagon should get put in front of a firing squad over this. Even if Newsweek is guilty of sloppy reporting, it is also apparent that they did not invent this out of whole cloth: Someone at the Pentagon planted the idea, and then later retracted.

This is the result of all those layers of fact checking?  Stories like this put interesting punctuation into the argument that the feds should regulate bloggers but allow the legacy media a get-out-of-jail-free exemption.

It also makes me wonder, just like with the CBS story, how often they've pulled this kind of stunt but never been caught or allowed to slink away with some minor once sentence retraction six months later.

I don't think there will be any serious repercussions to Newsweek from this.  Much like CBS I think this magazine pretty much panders to their audience and their audience probably wanted this story to be true more than they want to punish Newsweek for falsely claiming it to be so.  

Bottom line: they only loose a bit more of their already tenuous credibility with people other than the Deaniacs.  The inevitable damage control, lame denials, and "fake but accurate" fallback positions that we can all pretty much see coming will finish off the rest of that particular bucket.  

No big surprise, no great loss.

Well, the good news is that this particular area of endeavor will probably be declared off-limits to reportorial spear-throwers. The next guy who wants to wound Bush with "let's get the Muslims pissed at him" will likely be told they can't do that one anymore.

That's OK. These are creative guys. They'll find other spears to throw.

Considering that many American reporters have, for four decades, gone out of their way to slander people who have been taught how to kill their fellow man in an efficient manner, it is downright miraculous that the number of US reporters killed by members of the US military is at or extremely close to zero.

I'm not sure if it can all be put on Newsweek. Personally, it seems like they were fed some wolf tickets, and it seemed that things in Afghanistan had been bubbling for a while. Regardless, it's another example of the sorry state of our media.

What strikes me as odd is that there were reports of this more than a year ago:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1168937,00.html

Are we to infer that the Afghanis are huge Newsweek fans? A tragically strange chain of events.

-JP

...is whether this report counts as an "overt act" for the purposes of Section 3 of Article III in the US Constitution.

I believe Mark Whitaker (Newsweek EinC) should be forced on a walking tour of Afganistan, apologizing to any Muslim who will listen and explaining that he is an irresponsible lout, a partisan fool, and not representative of Americans in general.

Maybe editors will think twice in future before publishing what amount to attacks on Bush and which needlessly endanger the lives of our servicemen and women.  

Yeah, that's it.  Just another piece of the vast right-wing conspiracy...

"...it is also apparent that they did not invent this out of whole cloth..."

Right.  Just like Danny Rather's "document" wasn't invented out of whole cloth, no wait...

I see that the White House is now demanding a retraction from Newsweek. Although Newsweek has admitted that the report was in error, they have not formally retracted the story. It is still in that gray area known as "fake, but accurate."

That the White House now demands a retraction tells us that the Pentagon is confident that no such thing happened, and that Newsweek is hanging out there with a story that they can't back up.

Haven't we seen this before? CBS memmogate?

Sure they can back it up, they can burn their 'source', haven't we seen this tactic before also?

It's not surprising that people would make this a partisan issue, especially since the author Isikoff is a conservative Republican. This also doesn't answer the real questions regarding the torturing of prisoners. Americans tortured people at Guantanamo as well as Iraq. Is this really farfetched? What's really the important story?

How do we explain that this story has been run in numerous major publications previously? Something doesn't add up.

Also, Newsweek had a solid source of information, and the Pentagon had two weeks (?) to counter the info regarding the Koran.

Also, here is a statement by the state department:

"Afghan Riots Not Tied to Report on Quran Handling, General Says"

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/May/12-273892.html?chanlid=wash
file

Just doesn't add up.

-JP

But this is gross irresponsibility, and I would hope the Pentagon keeps this in  mind the next time someone from Newsweek wants to discuss things.

This outlet has proven itself grossly irresponsible, and 15 people are dead.  They are lucky no Americans got killed.

I generally try to avoid using fighting words. That's because you never know if the guy you're talking to is going to take you up on them--and how far he might decide to push it.

The press uses them regularly. And a frequent target of these fighting words is the US military.

Yeah, great idea: insult and belittle those who have been taught how to use all manner of lethal implements--frequently while those lethal toys are in use.

Remarkable self-discipline, IMHO.  Very remarkable.