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Scottie Goes Ballistic on Newsweek
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McClellan, George W's mouthpiece to the media, piled up a mountain of ironies when he lashed out at Newsweek recently for its piece about the desecration of the Quran by US guards at Guantanamo Bay prison. Scottie was outraged, he said, because Newsweek editors initially refused to retract the story after finding a factual flaw in it. Filled with righteous indignation, McClellan lectured reporters about standards of truth, about relying on only one source, and about credibility.
Hoo-boy...where to start? How about with the entire pack of lies that the Bushites used to plunge American troops into the war and ongoing occupation of Iraq? Even though the White House has now been forced to admit that it couldn't find any Weapons of Mass Destruction or a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam--we still have received no retraction of their story or apology for damaging US credibility all around the world.
Also, you might recall that the Bushites' untrue story about a "mobile biological weapons lab" in Iraq was not only based on a single source, but the source was a guy that US intelligence never interviewed! And when Scott wails in outrage about Newsweek relying on only one source, he didn't add that the source is a top-ranking official in Bush's own Pentagon, or that Pentagon officials were shown the story before publication and raised no objection to its truthfulness.
Then there's the general tone of White House glee over getting to beat up on Newsweek, part of the despised "liberal media." But wait--the author of Newsweek's piece is a hero to the right wing, the guy who broke the Monica Lewinsky story that led to Bill Clinton's impeachment trial!
Oh, one more irony: While Scottie is piously browbeating Newsweek for a glitch in it's story, note that he does not and cannot say that the desecration charge itself is untrue.
Jim Hightower is the best-selling author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush," from Viking Press. For more information, visit jimhightower.com.
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