While there is no defense for what Newsweek did, lives haven't been lost because of their ineptitude. Lives have been lost because we are dealing with people who so hate America and Americans, they would have used stepping on someones foot as an insult and we would have had the same results.

We would not have done the same thing to the Muslim world if the situation had been reversed.
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As a Jew, I'd be terribly upset if someone flushed the Torah down the toilet. As a Christian, I suspect you'd be upset if someone flushed the Bible down the toilet. However, for all of our disagreements, I think I am correct in saying that neither of us would organize around 1/3 of the globe to destroy innocent Muslims. Again, I say with a fair degree of certainly, neither side would do anything to encourage violence. We would go to the State Dept. We would go to Congress and ask for sanctions, perhaps. We might boycott. In other words, we would respond in a rational, appropriate manner.
There's nothing rational about killing people for being insulted.
That's what we're dealing with and our politicians on both sides don't have the balls to say it. "Careful. We can't say anything to offend them." They're cutting off our heads, for goodness sakes!
This unfortunate incident would prove worthwhile if it finally woke up people on both sides and let them see what total hate and destruction we are dealing with.

Didn't the Newsweek controversy teach you something about the trustworthiness of a journalist who relies on "pretty good sources inside"?

Michael Isikoff. You mean the same guy who had such credibility with the right when his channeling of Linda Tripp helped lead to the impeachment of Bill Clinton?

As for who shares responsibility in this, you forgot to mention that Newsweek ran this report by the White House before publication. If the reportage really caused the riots (General Myers said it didn't) and really makes the job of soldiers in Iraq harder (I question Lance's opinion not because he's a soldier, but because of his hard-right political affiliation, which colors everything--in war or in peace--that he sees), then the White House must take some blame for not protesting before the story ran. So, maybe General Myers is wrong and Newsweek is responsible for the riots and a hard row in Iraq, but the White House is also morally culpable for not denying the report before it went to press.

Bill Hobbs, citing an anonymous source, claims that Newsweek will run a cover story about the scandal they caused by citing an anonymous source.

Meanwhile, Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff "said an after-action report provided by U.S. Army Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, commander of the Combined Forces in Afghanistan, indicated that the political violence was not, in fact, connected to the magazine report."

named source - US State Dept. http://usinfo.state.gov/is/Archive/2005/May/13-299433.html

I've seen the photos of the protests, the ones with folks holding posters referencing the Koran incident. I've read of the threat of renewed "jihad" in Afghanistan unless the U.S. does something about the flushed Koran. It CLEARLY had some impact.

"I've learned from a pretty good source who has a connection inside Newsweek" -- That's one of the funniest lines I've read in a while. (It was supposed to be funny, right?)

The two respondents above represent a key reason the left is losing ground with voters: the inability to admit, under any circumstance, that liberals are wrong or guilty on any issue. Newsweek prints a full retraction and these two are still playing defense. I'm sure they believe Alger Hiss was innocent as well. The problem for Democrats is that these folks are in the mainstream of the party - they are no longer on the fringe.

"the inability to admit, under any circumstance, that liberals are wrong or guilty on any issue"

Projecting from the right?

Blame Bush/America first, that's the only way to explain anything! I'm constantly amazed by the hypocrisy of journalists who suggest that Bush/America can't change the world and shouldn't - and then they go on to suggest that Bush/America played a role in everything negative.

Read this article about the media's handling of the Newsweek mess.

Lance - I'm not a Democrat, and Rex isn't either. Rex actually voted for Dole and GWB (twice!) and attended the RNC. http://www.rexblog.com/discuss/msgReader$3606

The problem for you is that you are making sweeping generalizations based on specifics cases, and you can't even get the specifics cases right. You clearly don't know what you are talking about, yet you claim that those who oppose your views are incapable of admitting mistakes.

"specifics" should obviously be "specific"

"Bush/America ... Bush/America ... Bush/America"

Looks like Chad lives in the "United States of GeeDubya."

Kevin,

My post refers to you and S-town. The post from Rex appeared after I submitted my post. You clearly don't know what you are talking about.

my comment about comments not showing up until hours later has not shown up yet hours later.

Looks like we've got another Liberal unamerican apologist:

"In the United States if there's a terrible report, people don't riot and kill other people," she said. "And you can't excuse what they did because of the mistake — you know, you can't blame it all on Newsweek."

http://cbs5.com/politics/politicsnational_story_140093250.html

Bill and Lance: Are you guys going to run an update on the GITMO/Newsweek story, given this evening's Pentagon report that Qurans were urinated on and kicked? Source.

Newsweek doesn't appear so "Newsweak" after all.

Upon further review, s-townMike, those incidents appear mostly to be accidental and actually it is the prisoners at Gitmo doing most of the Koran-desecration.

And Newsweek is still Newsweak because it ran a false story based on an unconfirmed claim from an anonymous source.

The only confirmed incident of Koran-flushing are Korans flushed BY A PRISONER to stop up their toilet as a kind of protest and/or terrorist "monkey-wrenching."

You guys are a hoot. Love reading your blog. In Ancient Greece, I think this would have been called "sophistry."