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Those Who Live in (White) Glass Houses...
Rather galling display of grandstanding coming from the White House...
Newsweek Urged to Do More to Repair Damage
By Terence Hunt
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON - The White House says Newsweek took a "good first step" by retracting its story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran, but it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article.
Newsweek on Monday retracted the report in its May 9 issue after officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department criticized its publication and its use of an anonymous source. Protests in Afghanistan, where more than a dozen people died and scores were injured in rioting, and demonstrations elsewhere in the Muslim world were blamed on the article.
"The report had real consequences," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone."
McClellan said a retraction was only "a good first step" and said Newsweek should try to set the record straight by "clearly explaining what happened and how they got it wrong, particularly to the Muslim world, and pointing out the policies and practices of our military."
(Full article.)
Yes, Newsweek screwed up, and they did the right thing by retracting the story. But before the Bush Administration starts pointing fingers at the media, they should take a long hard look at themselves.
"Real consequences." "People have lost their lives." "Our image abroad has been damaged." "It will take work to undo what can be undone." All these comments are true, but all of them apply equally to the fradulent justifications that the Bush Administration presented for invading Iraq, an immoral act which caused infinitely more harm to world peace than this comparatively minor magazine article. All of these assertions have repeatedly been made by liberal and progressive journalists against the Bush Administration, to be met only by the latter's continued silence. And yet the Administration demands the very same accountability from Newsweek which it is unwilling to practice itself.
Okay, Mr. McClellan, Newsweek will "clearly (explain) what happened and how they got it wrong." Right after you do likewise.
May 17, 2005 in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Flushing the Koran down the toilet did not kill those people.
I am proud that I live in a country where I can flush all the Holy scriptures down as many toilets as I wish without fear of the death penality.
Maybe Bush should flush a bible, just to even the score, or maybe our friends in the east should learn to value human life more than ink on parchment.
Posted by: Kelley bell at May 17, 2005 2:26:30 PM
You make a very, very good point.
Posted by: brian at May 18, 2005 1:09:03 PM
To paraphrase British MP George Galloway, the White House's response is "the mother of all smokescreens." As Molly Ivins notes, this is far from the only reported instance of the U.S. military desecrating the Koran for interrogation purposes:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=19061
But leave it to the White House to get all up in arms about the Newsweek article in an attempt to obscure their own guilt in the prisoner abuse/torture scandal.
FYI, Galloway's politely rousing diatribe against Senator Norm Coleman can be witnessed here:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article8869.htm
Posted by: Pete at May 18, 2005 1:31:27 PM
Politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel- that may be a banality, but nevertheless it is a banality that subsumes truth, a truth that comes to fore, every now and then, when a scumbag is exposed in the ruling class, a scumbag such as Gallaway, who could rave ad nauseam about plight of stricken Iraqis but now the truth is emerging in a shattering explosion of high profile political drama, and we find out that the tears that this so-called leader was shedding were not made out of salty water, instead it was petroleum, twenty million barrels of petroleum to be precise, that is the amount of money for which Gallaway sold his soul to the devil.
There is no doubt in my mind that Gallaway is guilty of all the crimes that the US is accusing him off. The respectable US senators would never accuse anyone without any reason. Rule of law is the hallmark of US politics. If US says a man is scumbag then he must be so. If US says a man is cheat then he must be so. If US says a man has made dirty money by conniving with Saddam then it must be so. If US says a man ought to be excoriated by one and all then thy will must be done!!!!
The innocent British citizens are feeling betrayed by the revelation that Gallaway had been hand in league with Saddam all the time. And rightly so!!! Every decent Brit I have met during the last few days says he is shocked by the revelations of Gallaway’s thievery.
A severe punishment is needed to deter lowlife politicians from making a mockery of the international law to fulfill their own personal greed. The Gallaway conspiracy should be investigated to the very end and the details should be released to the public, so that the citizens, who erred in voting this person into the parliament, should realize just how badly they have misjudged.
When Gallaway campaigned against Iraq war he was only protecting his own ill-gotten wealth, now the truth is coming out. Like everyone else I am shocked. Next time Gallaway opens his mouth in public I will expect to see a forked tongue, like that of a lizard.
Posted by: Secret Squirrel at May 18, 2005 11:26:08 PM
It is just too bad that journalists are resorting to writing on important issues without verifying them first? The media has so much of investigative resources at its disposal so how can they ever make this kind of mistake. And it is happening all the time.
Such mercenary attitude in the media is just too abhorrent for me. I think the reputation of the international media has now reached its nadir. People don’t trust their editors anymore.
If the media can print false stories on such important issues then that makes them no different from the lying politicians. Just for the sake of selling few odd copies they will prattle any lie. I am shocked, because in the past I had been a reader of Newsweek. Now I don’t know which stories were factual and which made-up.
Posted by: Secret Squirrel at May 18, 2005 11:28:37 PM
As a corollary, I used to believe that pronouncements coming out of the White House were the unvarnished truth. And then I became an adult.
Squirrel, you refer to the accusing U.S. senators as respectable, shortly after saying politics is the last refuge of the scoundrel. So which is it? Are all politicians scoundrels? Or just those who are critical of the Bush Administration's policies?
Anybody who says "If US says a man is scumbag then he must be so. If US says a man is cheat then he must be so." is hopelessly naive. Politicians, even American ones, routinely make accusations for purely political purposes rather than any interest in spreading truth--with the McCarthy communist witchhunts of the 1950s being only the most extreme example.
If Coleman and his cadre have any hard evidence of Galloway reaping millions from illicit oil sales--preferably something more than the dubious word of Ahmad Chalabi and an Abu Ghraib detainee and probable torture victim--let them publicly disclose it. Otherwise they should apologize to the man and then shut their blowhard mouths.
Posted by: Pete at May 19, 2005 9:23:02 AM
Now you can express your freedom without clogging your toilet. Check out flushaholybook.com where you can flush most all of the major holy books.
Posted by: Flush Koran, Flush Bible, Flush Torah, ... at Jun 8, 2006 7:13:25 PM
