It was a very recent directive from the Propaganda Ministry. Did you get the memo? Happy news good. Other news bad.
Eh, that’s impossible. You’re forgetting about the left-wing bias.
It’s the left-wing bias that made Kerry a FLIPFLOPPERFUCKINGFRENCHLOOKINGFLIPFLOPPER and yet, for some reason, McClellan contradicting himself on record is totally unremarked. You know, the guy that’s the official spokesperson of the White House.
-Joe, wonders when Left and Right swapped
And not all fundimental christians act similarly. Some don’t believe in violence at all. Some don’t believe in forcing their religion upon you.
Suuuuuuuure, no generalizations there.
That’s bullshit and you know it.
:wally
I believe you mean MiniTrue.
Anybody check out the headline on the NY Post today? 
Take off for a day and miss 3 pages.
ACT-UP got national headlines at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1989, disrupting an advent service; parishoners said some of the protestors threw the host on the ground and stomped on it. I don’t recall any riots.
Andres Serrano got lost of ink over dropping a crucifix and rosary beads in urine; again, no riots.
I could go on, but there’s no point.
Young unemployed males riot.
Angry middle aged males with something to lose call talk radio.
Actually, #3 looks more like “Newsweek is left holding the bad when their source says, ‘Hey, I think I referenced the wrong government document about the Koran-flushing incident.’”
Also of note is that the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff does not believe the rioting is related to the article:
Thanks rjung ! I suspected that this could be the case. God knows they have plenty of things to riot about.
It’s tempting to say a newspaper or magazine needs to have multiple sources for everything they print, even if the one source is considered reliable. But I wonder how many important stories would not have been printed under that standard.
Require too much confirmation, the public’s right to know suffers. Require too little, and we have more messes like this one. Likely no matter where the line is drawn, there’s going to be problems.
The whole “Koran flushed down the toilet” claim was made several times in the media before Newsweek, going back to March 2003. Newsweek’s was the first attributed to an Administration official, rather than to a detainee.
Who knew that that distinction would make all the difference to a bunch of people on the other side of the world? :rolleyes:
As for me, I’m thinking that Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita’s wonderful quote - “People are dead because of what this son of a bitch said. How could he be credible now?” would look great on a protest poster in front of the White House.
Again, stories of this sort have been trickling out for over a year. It’s absurd to suggest that they shouldn’t be printed until the fucking pentagon, AKA the alleged perpetrator, acknowledges the reality of the charges.
Molly Ivins offers a nice history of Koran abuse claims in today’s column: Despite sloppiness, Newsweek didn’t fabricate Koran story
You didn’t get that suggestion from my post that you quoted, did you?
No. However, there are some, perhaps even in the white house, who are willing to extend that line of argument to ridiculous extremes.
True. And this is their golden opportunity.
Yeah. And both are good for the Administration (especially now that Newsweek has buckled).
The conspiracy theorist in me is waking up…
And she lies as usual (this time in the title–even Newsweek admits they can’t substantiate their story). Her implication is that people have been accusing the US of abusing the Koran for a long time, so this MUST be true!
I hope she’s never served on a jury.
Now you just hold on there, podnuh! You’re talking about Molly now, the correct tone is hushed reverence. But more to the point, there is a considerable area of real estate between failing to substantiate a story and fabricating the story out of whole cloth.
I skipped the Ivins article.
Where’s the sloppiness though? They reported what one source said. They checked the interview against 2 other sources. When the first source retracted, they reported that.
Seems to me that Newsweek did a fine job.
Those who can’t distinguish between “fabrication” and “failed to get triple-verification” should not be trusted when they accuse others of lying.
For shame.