James at Outside The Beltway [1]:
“Newsweek has formally retracted its report that American soldiers flushed a Koran down a toilet to induce prisoners at Guantnamo to talk. In fact, the documentary evidence indicates just the opposite: an almost absurd level of deference given to the Muslim holy book to avoid offense.”
Which still leaves us, of course, with the questions I originally asked a few days ago… Where’s this story come from, and why?
I’ve already suggested this was anti-US anti-Bush bias. Is releasing such nonsense an orginised effort on the part of the press?
No. I doubt it, though it’s looking more an dmore likely that this info was planeted in a timely fashion by someone else… and the press simply byassed journalistic standards.
It’s rather like gravity. I said at Q&O the other day:
This is not a matter of any official policy, or an overt intent, for the most part. However, When standards go by the way, people tend to fall to their own devices, and beliefs….which in the case of the press is well known.
This is sloppy journalism in the sense that journalistic standards got dropped. and yes, before the nut gallary gets warmed up..such offenses occur on both sides… right and left, in terms of dropping journalistic standards.
However…When standards go by the way, people tend to fall to their own devices, and beliefs. I submit that veering right or left from the mythical objectivity, is a direct result of the devices, and beliefs of the people in question… in this case press people. And press people are overwhelmingly leftist, by their own numbers… to the tune of 85-90%. Which way will things fall among such a group, when those journalistic standards get bypassed? Which way is objectivity more likely to fail?
This bit with NewsWeak is merely one more example in decdes of such bias.
Added thoughts: In looking at the speed of the response among the rioters, one wonders if there wasn’t some pre-planning involved, here. How’d they get the info about hte NewsWeak article so quickly in a country that’s just discovered modern tools like the candle, and gunpowder? we’re dealing with a far more sophisticated comms network than we were aware of, or we were witness to a pre-planned event.
And I’m not sure which possibility concerns me more.
Update again:
The Lovely Michelle [2] says, in part, in speaking of NewsWeak:
“The magazine still doesn’t seem to understand that such self-aggrandizing hype is simply more fuel on the Islamists’ fire.”
Oh, they know, Michelle…. they know.
Austin Bay adds: [3]
I am personally sympathetic with Isikoff et al, but they’re going to have to show me the same grit I see in the service when a mistake gets made. Look at the depth and breadth of the “Sgrena Incident” Route Irish shooting investigation. Okay, disagree with the conclusion, but the investigation lays out details and questions judgments. Will Newsweek produce the equivalent? I believe the magazine need to do just that. Dan Rather has yet to find “Lucy Ramirez.” Eason Jordan’s tape has yet to be released. Newsweek could avoid the Rather-Jordan quagmire with an investigation as thorough as the “Sgrena Incident” investigation conducted by the US and Italian militaries. Some people will never believe them. But if a New York Army National Guard sergeant has the guts to tell investigators what he saw and how he felt standing at a check point on Route Irish, the suits and ties at Newsweek can submit to the same tough routine of sworn questioning. Let’s find out who the anonymous source was.
Austin notes that….
” I see some commenters are already spinning a conspiracy theory that this whole incident is a Bush administration “distraction” (ie, some kind of calculated Rovian press manipulation). “
Well, Yeah…. You just knew the moonbats were coming out on this one. After all, the left has been desperate to find a story they could hang the Bush administration by… and if true this would have qualified. Thing was, it wasn’t… which now even Newsweak had to admit. the result of being leftist being denied their prize once again is unhinged leftists. Take All-around moonbat Keith Olbermann, for example. (Yes, as far away as possible) The Ankle Biter reports the following quote from Obly: [4]
The way Craig Crawford reconstructed it, this one went similarly to the way the Killian Memos story evolved at the White House. The news organization turns to the administration for a denial. The administration says nothing. The news organization runs the story. The administration jumps on the necks of the news organization with both feet – or has its proxies do it for them. That’s beyond shameful. It’s treasonous.
There’s more at Olbermannwatch [5], too.
Of course the one key element in all these scenarios old Keith forgets to mention, is that the press simply jumps all over a story that makes the US look bad without bothering to actually investigate them.
So, now we hear cries of “It’s all the VRWC’s fault.”
“It’s all Rove.”
One wonders what the beep these idiots have been smoking.
And I’ve still got “libertarians” telling me that they simply screwed up… this is not bias… no political motivation motivation there. Please, spare me the spin, guys. I give that nonsense the same kind of credit I give the knee-jerk lefties blaming the whole thing on Rove.
This story was released because NewsWeak bypassed jouranlistic standards… THe rule for the last number of years has been, if it makes Bush and the US look bad, it MUST be true… so don’t bother checking it for truth. Eason, Rather, et al, all followed the same pattern.