Flushing Newsweek

I've watched with interest the uproar over Newsweek's truly abysmal reporting and resulting debacle over whether or not interrogators put Qu'rans in the toilet in Guantanamo. The Media Critic column today discussed how the right has taken this issue and made it a "new club with which to beat journalists."

I think it is interesting to consider the relationship between the military and the media. After the big schism in the 60s and 70s that had Vietnam at its epicenter through to the cozy embedding in the Gulf, the two organizations have had a strange on again off again relationship. I don't think that this story was going after the administration, necessarily. (Some have compared it to the Dan Rather attack on Bush's National Guard record, which used that fellow who was clearly and loudly biased as its only source.) I think Guantanamo is likely a hotbed of horrible things, not the least of which is the complete absence of any judicial process for the majority of prisoners who remain there. Years have passed!

(As an aside, I was intrigued while reading about Saddam's undies to learn that he hasn't been charged with a crime yet! It's been over a year!?! One would think that there'd be a laundry list of charges, but he's sitting there in prison much like the people at G'mo. I have to say Due Process might be something our admin needs to remind itself of.)

Oh yeah, and Sith broke all opening weekend box office records. And I haven't even gone yet. Damn Lucas and his mind control.