As is predictable with religious zealots who hate America no matter what, Muslim and Taliban leaders don't accept Newsweek's retraction. But it's very telling that Newsweek wouldn't retract at first, attempting to weasel around their culpability in the riots that followed their erroneous story. Someone on their staff lied and now much of the headway we were making with Muslims in Afghanistan and elsewhere has been destroyed. And 16 people (or more) are dead in wake of violence.
Zealots will be zealots, I guess, but we don't need our most visible media handing them a club to beat us with.
Naturally the left's answer to this is "Well, George Bush lied and a lot more people died." This is old stuff, and not really true, either -- Bush didn't lie. And our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan have had largely GOOD results, if the press would bother to mention them. Newsweek has screwed up in their drive to make Bush and America look bad, and now they can't even tell the truth and be believed. The source-checking appears to have been almost non-existent on this story. What happened to real journalism?
Whether or not this newly threatened Jihad against the US will mean anything in the long run (the zealots hated us BEFORE, so nothing's really changed), it will certainly escalate conflict and death in the short run.
Good job, Newsweek. Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy are probably proud of you, but no one else is.
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