Bush: U.S. Image Tarnished by... NEWSWEEK?

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House says Newsweek took a "good first step" by retracting its story that U.S. investigators found evidence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Quran, but it wants the magazine to do more to repair damage caused by the article.
Newsweek on Monday retracted the report in its May 9 issue after officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department criticized its publication and its use of an anonymous source. Protests in Afghanistan, where more than a dozen people died and scores were injured in rioting, and demonstrations elsewhere in the Muslim world were blamed on the article.
"The report had real consequences," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Monday. "People have lost their lives. Our image abroad has been damaged. There are some who are opposed to the United States and what we stand for who have sought to exploit this allegation. It will take work to undo what can be undone."

Apparently Newsweek is to blame for the U.S.'s tarnished image abroad. It makes sense. After all, Newsweek did lie to the world about the certainty of Hussein having WMD -- so that Newsweek could invade Iraq, kill tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians and over 1600 U.S. soldiers, and install a Newsweek-friendly government. And let's not forget how Newsweek tortured and murdered prisoners at Abu Ghraib and other prisons throughout the Middle East and Cuba -- and definitely let's not forget how Newsweek's been coddling the dictators in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

And then there's the way Newsweek has unilaterally pulled us out of global warming treaties and the international criminal court. Oh, and the way Newsweek pulled funding from international family planning organizations in AIDS-ravaged countries unless those organizations taught abstinence-only instead of performing abortions and handing out condoms.

Newsweek has an awful lot to answer for.
•
•
•