THE NEWSWEEK KORAN-IN-THE-TOILET FLAP

Great essay on the whole thing from that MSNBC guy Keith Olbermann, courtesy of Eschaton:

The resignation of Scott McClellan

Whenever I hear this White House talking about ‘doing to damage to our image abroad’ and how ‘people have lost lives,’ I strain to remember who it was who went traipsing into Iraq looking for WMD that will apparently turn up just after the Holy Grail will — and at what human cost.

Newsweek’s version of this story has varied from the others over the last two years — ones in The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, and British and Russian news organizations — only in that it quoted a government source who now says he didn’t have firsthand knowledge of whether or not the investigation took place (oops, sorry, shoulda mentioned that, buh-bye). All of its other government connections — the ones past which it ran the story — have gone from saying nothing like ‘don’t print this, it ain’t true’ or ‘don’t print this, it may be true but it’ll start riots,’ to looking slightly confused and symbolically saying ‘Newsweek? Newsweek who?’

Whatever I smell comes from this odd sequence of events: Newsweek gets blasted by the White House, apologizes over the weekend but doesn't retract its story. Then McClellan offers his Journalism 101 outdoor seminar and blasts the magazine further. Finally, just before 5 p.m. Monday, the Dan Rather drama replaying itself in its collective corporate mind, Newsweek retracts.

Click here for the rest.

Yeah, this whole thing stinks, and it's a total drag that Newsweek retracted the story: as Olbermann points out, this is an old and unchallenged piece of news. At any rate, this essay is a delightfully wicked read, ending with the conclusion that White House press secretary Scott McClellan will have to resign for fumbling the whole response. Go check it out.

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