Misplaced Blame

My take on the Qu'ran in the toilet story is that the blame is obviously misplaced by Scott McClellan and the Bush Administration on Newsweek. Just like the attacks on Dan Rather, the truth or credibilty of the issue is forgotten. No more questions were asked whether Dubya missed a couple months of his military commitment, but incensed right wing bloggers analyzed those memos down to the history of Selectric typewriters. A search for previous mentions of the Qu'ran story shows ample instances before Newsweek and Isikoff offhandedly included their mention. A simple search shows that this Qu'ran business had already been bruited about for more than a year especially by Aljazeera. The truth is, we don't know if the toilet story is true or not , but Newsweek repeating it has little stigma attached. General Myers, speaking for the Pentagon, nixed the idea last week, saying that these riots were already underway and that the Qu'ran element was a "pretext". We should probably be a little more concerned that the Taliban influence in Afghanistan has not been eradicated, rather than reasons that rioters are upset with us. In any case, it was our guys, the Afghan police, that shot the rioters. The right wingnuts are once again misdirecting the blame to the messenger, hoping that the substance of torture, real or retracted, is diminished somehow, while taking no responsibility whatsoever for their own actions or the truth of the matter.