Our press made an error but it certainly could have been true. REally. We do make mistakes. We are not perfect. But we correct our mistakes and we see them as mistakes or even crimes to be punished and corrected. But the Islamists think their killing spree was perfectly justified. Heck, they'd like bigger and better killing sprees. Isn't this attitude a little odd? Shouldn't our press address this aspect of the story? What I am upset about is that the media won't discuss this aspect. Only the US can be wrong in their view. Somehow, in their bones, the press knows we provoked this tragedy. Just what did we do to deserve this. That will get a 10-part PBS series. Bloodthirsty Islamists? How can they report on what they don't believe? It's a religion of peace so they can't have bloody hands.
But one thing that does amuse me about the entire incident is that a single source led to the story. Yet the press is upset about the conclusion our government drew from far better sources about Iraq's pre-2003 WMDs:
How many stories has Newsweek written about the Bush administration allegedly "skewing intelligence" by relying on raw, insufficiently sourced data? How many times has it lamented that these mistakes have hurt the U.S. abroad? Too many to count.
So will the press support some reorganization of the press to make sure that they only print stories that conform to the consensus of the press? Shouldn't we have a DCJ? A Director of Central Journalism? I mean, should cowboy journalists be running around using dubious sources and printing up whatever they want? Couldn't this result in politicized reporting and writing?
Just kidding. Blog oversight will do just fine.
