Is Newsweek the Republican reich's new whipping boy?

[Initech]

This thought entered my head this morning when I read Mallard Fillmore in the comics sections. For those of you who dont know what it is, Mallard Fillmore is the Rush Limbaugh of the comics section. It's a poorly drawn and horribly unfunny comic. It unfortunately happens to be on the same page of the LA Times as great comics like the Boondocks.

For the last few months, this guy has done nothing but bash Dan Rather. Now he's taking it out on Newsweek. (I'll post the comic if I can find it)

So is the entire Republican line of thinking now turning its anger toward Newsweek for the story about flushing the Qu'ran down the toilet? If you think about it, this is the same kind of crap that Dan Rather took for his story about Bush's war record.

[Pacifist Patriot]

1. Whipping Boy of the Week

...Until they need / can find a new one.

[napi21]

2. WOW! You read my mind!

That's exactly what I was going to write!

I'll add, Newsweek will be "IT" until they find the next one. It's all a game to these people, and they can't let any stories sget too old, 'cause people lose interest. Gotta keep finding new ones to rev up the crowd!!!

[pretzel4gore]

3. and not for whoring, but for trying to report news!

newsweak, of course, will do like cbs...confess, repent and obey (ah, wouldn't want to alarm the masses now, would they, by telling truth about bushinc!)

[jayctravis]

4. The comic has a right to be there.

Especially if it runs with Boondocks which presents the other view.

I think Newsweek's retraction was shrewd strategy. They were told to retract by the Whitehouse, but they didn't snappily do it until after a day of newscasts...that made it blatantly clear that The WH DID INDEED tell them to take back the story.

Notice how reports are pouring out that they didn't get the *facts* wrong, there was only a technicality in who said what and then retracted their approval later. Probably on orders of the WH.

I think NW knew there was a bigger story, and this episode is part of the intricate mechansim of getting to it.

In an alternate universe, we would hope the WH would be able to demand retraction for a truly false statement.

I paged through a couple of the FBI documents from the FOIA request and got a sense of what is truly secret. One page had two sentences readable, that was in essence "he is an old man" "who is incarcerated at GTMO". That was the whole page.

But there were others that told most of a story, wisely covering specific names of the people who were being questioned spoke about, which is legitimately a national security issue.

[Initech]

5. That is a good point.

For one thing - about this part:

"Notice how reports are pouring out that they didn't get the *facts* wrong, there was only a technicality in who said what and then retracted their approval later. Probably on orders of the WH.
"

That's exactly what they said about Dan Rather. And I think that's what cost us the 2004 election. Now that the 2006 elections are coming, I think maybe the Republican's big strategy is to knock another source of "liberal media" off the scene, in this case, Newsweek.

But, on the other hand, I wonder if that's what Newsweek had in mind when it printed that story at first?

Maybe they're hinting that the conservatives can be easily riled up if there's some slightly bad news about our great leader?

[gratuitous]

7. The gang at Newsweek isn't that smart

Or that stupid, depending on how you're looking at this. They overreached, just like the Rather broadcast overreached, and got slapped down for it by folks who knew which nit to pick. Newsweek's lame rationale for running with their story (based first on unnamed "sources" then later on one unnamed "source" -- singular) was that no one they contacted told them this one little picayune detail was wrong.

Bob Somerby and his Daily Howler was incomparably on this story all last week (check the archives at www.dailyhowler.com). While I think Somerby has gone a little overboard himself, Newsweek is no friend to liberals and progressives, being the home of Mike Isikoff, the man who almost single-handedly carried Ken Starr's water for over two years in an attempt to "get" Bill Clinton. That he got burned on this story by his unnamed source is just a continuation of his sloppy journalistic career.

However, the ferocity with which the corrupt Bush administration attacks a single, picayune fact underlying a story, one that doesn't discredit the overall story at all, is their modus operandi for dealing with unfavorable stories in the media. Practically every story gets something wrong somewhere along the line, and delving through the murky swamp of the Bush detritus is a very tricky business indeed. It's not surprising that the occasional factlet gets confused or overstated, given their mania for secrecy. But the overarching stories remain true: Bush was AWOL from his National Guard unit, and was given preferential treatment in the handling of that matter; and the wardens, guards and interrogators at Camp Guantanamo are guilty of maltreating the prisoners there. But these larger stories are subsumed by the Bush administration's high dudgeon manufactured for some minor element of every negative story, which the lap dogs of the major media immediately focus on to the detriment of the crime that's happening right before their rheumy, bleary eyes.

It's just Newsweek's turn in the barrel. Soon enough, the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or NBC News will be made an example of for the cowering fainthearts of the popular media, just to keep them in line and remind them what happens to outlets that cross the Dear Leader.

[zbdent]

6. Mega-Dittos for PricklyCity

of course.

The right-wingers like to say we're in lockstep - yet they claim we're a disorganized tiny little faction . . .

[Initech]

9. I like what Bill Maher said

"Parents these days are like the democrats - lame, spineless and not holding up their end of the equation. Kids these days are like the Republicans - drunk with power and out of control!"

[MasonJar]

8. How about John Kerry for being a war hero with stars to prove it?

[Gyre]

10. I think "butt boy" would be more apt.

They intentionally bent over after all, because they lacked a direct citable source that they'd never name anyways, even though they were correct on the content.

Gyre