Newsweek Debacles

Well back to the whacky world of politics.

I personally think flushing Qurans down the toilet is a bad policy. You know, ticks a bunch of people off that are already ticked off at us. I'm sure it would be tempting for a non-Muslim interrogator or guard to do at Guantanamo. After all, you might be thinking this book stood behind mass murder. Or maybe you would want to show a fundamentalist Muslim that their god doesn't care about them.

But it's a bad idea and a bad policy no matter what you think of the Quran. It disrespects a lot of peace loving Muslims who interpret the Quran to teach peace with others--people we want to be friends with. Frankly, I don't think Bush would agree with such actions (now Rumsfeld, I don't know...).

Did it happen? I don't know. I can certainly believe it happened. No one has come anywhere close to proving that it didn't happen. And Newsweek actually did send the article to the Defense department for pre-correction, but the Pentagon didn't mention the desecration of Quran stuff in their response.

As usual, what infuriates me is the hypocrisy among the talking heads, as if Newsweek is the one responsible for the bad image we have among the Muslim world. That's right. The Muslim world was fine with our invasion of Iraq, Abu Graib and all that stuff. But this Newsweek article? After it, all their good will is down the drain! Absolutely unbelievable.

Did Newsweek mess up? I bet they did. Could they have done a Dan Rather and not retracted the article? I suspect that, unlike him, they could have gotten away with not retracting it. It's a he said she said.

But my hunch is they did the honorable thing and retracted the article. Were they covering themselves? Probably that too. Of course it is also possible that they actually wanted to allay some of the world consequences of the article. And of course, someone might have been breathing down their neck.

By the way, the people rioting in Afghanistan are Karzai opposition who hated us anyway and are using the article as an excuse to foment opposition to Karzai. They didn't belong to the "Friends of the U.S. of A Society" until they got their Newsweek in the mail.

What now infuriates me is the talking heads--Scarborough, Fox News and Friends, the woman opposite Ron Reagan on MSNBC in the afternoons, who now speak of how Newsweek represents the "liberal elite" who just don't get it, are hurting our reputation with Muslims by printing lies that have no support in reality. These things seem a tad bit overstated and, hmm, just a little opportunistic and skewed. Or, maybe, they know they're overstating things, but just trying to help our image in the Muslim world. How helpful and global minded of them!

Maybe these things didn't happen. I hope they didn't. But I don't think anyone who thinks they might have is a liberal elite who doesn't get it.

In the end, it is good for the news people to be more circumspect in the evidence behind their stories. You shouldn't publish because you can believe something--not when the consequences are this big. That the media will be more careful in dotting their i's and crossing their t's is a good thing.

As for blogs, this remains the place for venting and feelings... Warning: I am not double checking my sources