Frank Rich: It's All Newsweek's Fault

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/22/05 at 11:50pm

Thank God Frank puts it all in perpective. Just the link below, because it's lengthy. Let me know if you need it pasted.

Here's 2 take-home grafs:

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Given this context, the administration's attempt to pass the entire buck to Newsweek for our ill odor among Muslims, including those Muslims who abhor jihadists committing murder, is laughable. Yet there's something weirdly self-incriminating about the language it uses to do it. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman whose previous boss, Colin Powell, delivered a fictional recitation of Saddam Hussein's weapon capabilities before the United Nations Security Council, said it's "shocking" that Newsweek used "facts that have not been substantiated." Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, attacked Newsweek for hiding "behind anonymous sources," yet it was an anonymous source, an Iraqi defector known as Curveball, who fed the fictions that Mr. Powell spouted to gin up America for war. Psychological displacement of this magnitude might give even Freud pause.

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IT is terrible that Newsweek was wrong, though it's worth noting, as John Donvan of ABC News did, that the Defense Department's claim that its story was "demonstrably" false is also an overreach. Almost nothing that happens in the sealed prison at Guantánamo is as demonstrable as, say, Saddam's underwear. But if something good can come out of something bad, the administration's overkill of Newsweek may focus greater public attention on just how much it is using press-bashing to deflect attention from the fictions spun by its own propaganda machine.
It's All Newsweek's Fault

[kissmycookie]

Posted: 5/22/05 at 11:57pm

The NYTimes Week in Review had a great cartoon today concerning this...

[Plum]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 12:07am

Even the First Lady isn't toeing the party line on the Newsweek issue.

[Ellie3]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 12:09am

The First Lady is getting brave! Did you see her get heckled on her outing in Israel?

[Plum]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 12:11am

By both sides, too. I feel kind of bad for her, but in lieu of her husband coming over, they had to heckle someone.

[Ellie3]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 12:14am

True. At least she has the season finale of Desperate Housewives to look forward to! I hope she got George to tape it for her.

[Plum]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 12:16am

D'you really think he can work a Tivo?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/23/05 at 11:57am

He can probably do it if he isn't simultaneously eating a pretzel.