Cynical Nation retracts
Andrew Sullivan lets Newsweek off the hook for their disastrous Koran-flushing story:
"Even if this incident turns out to be false, our previous policies have made it perfectly plausible." That's the deeper issue here.
Thanks to Andrew, I now feel emboldened to put forth a few overdue retractions of my own.
Last month I reported that Michael Moore's new movie would deny the Holocaust, glorify Hitler, and portray Judaism as a "filthy gutter religion." Well, it turns out that was wrong. Doesn't matter though, because Moore has played fast and loose with the truth so often in the past that it rendered this story plausible, and that's the "deeper issue" here.
Then last week, when I reported that Hillary Rodham Clinton was an evil, lesbian Wiccan who was using her Senate office to launder oil-for-food money, I erred as well. But that's hardly relevant. The real story is the cloud of ethics questions and allegations that have dogged her for the past dozen years and have tarnished her image to the point where such rumors are believable.
And just the other day when I confirmed reports that Glenn Reynolds puts puppies in blenders... well, I'm sticking by that one.
Comments
Don't back down. I have photographic proof.*
* Unaltered footage taken with a Kodak Box Brownie in 1924
Posted by: Evil Pundit | May 17, 2005 08:35 AM
Great Post! Stick with the puppy blender confirmation because as we know from our friends on the left, "It's not the nature of the evidence but the seriousness of the charge" that matters, right? By the way, was the Instalanche an unintended consequence?
Posted by: Palmetto Pundit | May 17, 2005 09:01 AM
Newsweek clearly was wrong for citing "sources" in their story when they had only one source and a series of non-denials. Still, Newsweek did show the story to the Pentagon prior to publishing it and the Pentagon responded with questions about a number of statements contained in the short article but the Pentagon did not question the statement in question.
Now, a non-denial is not the same as a confirmation. So Newsweek was clearly wrong to present one source as "sources". That said, your analogy isn't appropriate, in my view, as Newsweek's article did describe what a source had told them was coming out in a report and they did offer the Pentagon a chance to respond. In the end, the truth would've been better served by allowing the Pentagon to print the report first, but this is the reporter who broke the Monica affair before that report became public.
Posted by: PE | May 17, 2005 12:36 PM