Ann Coulter is up to her usual antics in this article (which is being praised by some right wing bloggers as showing her sensible side). Here we go:
When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.
When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.
Obviously, she's telegraphing where she plans on going with this, but that Isikoff and Newsweek didn't think that a blowjob in the White House warranted outrageous column inches and Matt Drudge did is hardly proof of anything.
When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones' accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff's then-employer The Washington Post -- which owns Newsweek -- decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.
So apparently it's possible for Michael Isikoff to have a story that actually is true, but for his editors not to run it.
Right, right... I get it Ann. Isikoff has such a history of shilling for the left and lambasting the right that his journalistic intentions are purely partisan. But a quick Google search brings you this, in which he blasts Fahrenheit 9/11 (in fact, several of the front page hits on the Google search are sites which are fisking Isikoff for being off-base about the movie, including Moore's website itself), this, (quote: "Mr. Isikoff is, famously, the journalist who discovered the liaison between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, and it was his reporting that led to impeachment proceedings against the president."), this, which follows Isikoff and Newsweek's interview with Richard Clarke around the time he was selling his book and seemed to side with the White House's discrediting of the former counter-terrorism chief, and this, in which Isikoff blasts Sidney Blumenthal's book about the Clinton impeachment. The lead of the article says "Sid Blumenthall rearranges facts and besmirches character of his fellow journalists. And he wonders why people don't like him." Like the Newsweek Koran story or not, attempting to discredit it by calling Isikoff a liberal shill isn't the best way to go about it.
Newsweek seems to have very different responses to the same reporter's scoops. Who's deciding which of Isikoff's stories to run and which to hold? I note that the ones that Matt Drudge runs have turned out to be more accurate -- and interesting! -- than the ones Newsweek runs. Maybe Newsweek should start running everything past Matt Drudge.
Somehow Newsweek missed the story a few weeks ago about Saudi Arabia arresting 40 Christians for "trying to spread their poisonous religious beliefs." But give the American media a story about American interrogators defacing the Quran, and journalists are so appalled there's no time for fact-checking -- before they dash off to see the latest exhibition of "Piss Christ."
Well of course Matt Drudge's scoops are more interesting, they require a 4th-grade reading level and a tabloid-reader's sensibilities. Sounds to me like Ann is giving away a bit too much about her preferences. But just in case you weren't sure, she makes it crystal clear for you by needling Newsweek for failing to write a story which unilaterally declares the Muslim religion as poisonous? Yeah.... well done, Ann. And while we're talking about fact-checking, show me the facts which refute Isikoff's claim that soldiers flushed a Koran down the toilet.
Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas justified Newsweek's decision to run the incendiary anti-U.S. story about the Quran, saying that "similar reports from released detainees" had already run in the foreign press -- "and in the Arab news agency al-Jazeera."
Also, the Pentagon didn't wave them off. But obviously Newsweek and Isikoff were the one's making the mistake. But why mention their complicity in a story you are calling erroneous when you can use it as another excuse to claim liberal media bias.
Is there an adult on the editorial board of Newsweek? Al-Jazeera also broadcast a TV miniseries last year based on the "Protocols of the Elders Of Zion." (I didn't see it, but I hear James Brolin was great!) Al-Jazeera has run programs on the intriguing question, "Is Zionism worse than Nazism?" (Take a wild guess where the consensus was on this one.) It runs viewer comments about Jews being descended from pigs and apes. How about that for a Newsweek cover story, Evan? You're covered -- al-Jazeera has already run similar reports!
Nice of you to mention your deep concern for religious sensitivity in the same article that you defend Koran-flushing and Toxic Islam.
Ironically, among the reasons Newsweek gave for killing Isikoff's Lewinsky bombshell was that Evan Thomas was worried someone might get hurt. It seems that Lewinsky could be heard on tape saying that if the story came out, "I'll (expletive) kill myself."
But Newsweek couldn't wait a moment to run a story that predictably ginned up Islamic savages into murderous riots in Afghanistan, leaving hundreds injured and 16 dead. Who could have seen that coming? These are people who stone rape victims to death because the family "honor" has been violated and who fly planes into American skyscrapers because -- wait, why did they do that again.
And the minute the article came out, riots materialized in Afghanistan out of thin air. Seriously, within seconds, right? Except that General Richard Myers said that the riots were already in progress, saying that the riots had more to do with process of reconciliation in the country. In fact, the commander on the ground in Afghanistan told Myers that "he thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine." And then there's the fact that the article appeared a full week before it was ever mentioned in the country.
The thing that I think we liberals are missing here is that Republicans like Coulter have put themselves in the position of defending those who flush holy books down a toilet. Hardly surprising since they've consistently defended torturous techniques. But much like we began destroying James Dobson when he went on his jihad against Spongebob Squarepants, this is a prime opportunity to point out just who they are allying themselves with.
These are people who are perfectly willing to degrade the holiest book of the people who's country we are occupying. Not to pull a Matthew McConaughey, "A Time to Kill" moment here, but imagine if it was an Iraqi flushing a Bible.
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