AUSTIN BAY writes that the Newsweek Koran-flushing debacle may turn out to be the press’s Abu Ghraib. It’s a must-read post with lots of links and background.

On the other hand, here’s a different analogy:

NEWSWEEK regrets it got a part of the story wrong. NEWSWEEK vows to continue looking into the charges. If there’s no substance to the charges, NEWSWEEK undoubtedly wants to break that story.

Heh. And read these comments, too.

UPDATE: The blogosphere catchphrase seems to be “Newsweek lied, people died.”

And Roger Simon observes:

There is a strong argument to be made that this is more serious than Rathergate. This is journalism at its most insidious and dangerous. Newsweek may end up having to fire some of its editorial staff, as well as the reporters involved. I watched their Washington bureau chief Dan Klaidman on the Geraldo Show tonight and he looked like the proverbial deer in the headlights. His answers were weak and evasive.

These guys don’t understand the difference between covering a minor domestic “gotcha” story and national security matters. To them, there isn’t a difference. If they’re that clueless, it’s no surprise that they don’t know how to respond when they’re caught.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Chris Breisch emails:

What’s amusing is that the same people who will scream about an evil American corporation which puts people at risk from carbon monoxide pollution will completely forgive another evil American corporation which puts people at risk by publishing falsehoods. The latter is equally as dangerous to American citizens, and perhaps more so, since countries rarely go to war over pollution, but often go to war over propaganda.

And Roger Kimball asks:

Why is it that all the stories you read in Time-Newsweek-The New York Times-The Washington Post-Etc. or see on CNN-The BBC-CBS-NBC-Etc., why is it that all their stories about Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Donald Rumsfeld, George W. Bush, etc., why is it that the presumption, the prejudice, the predisposition never goes the other way? Why is it that their reporters always assume the worst: that we’re doing dirty at Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., and are primed to pick up and believe any rumor damaging to the United States? Shakespeare knew that rumor was a “pipe/blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,” not to be trusted. So why do these journalists, trained to sift evidence, to probe sources, to listen beyond the static of rumor: why do they only do so in one direction, so to speak? Yes, I know that’s a self-answering question, at least in part, but it is worth pondering nonetheless.

As I’ve warned before, if Americans conclude that the press is, basically, on the side of the enemy, the consequences are likely to be dire.

A NIGHT AT RFK: Baseball Musings offers blog video, including fan interviews and action shots.

A “JUDICIAL REBELLION” in Egypt.

MINESHAFTBLOGGING, at Dartblog. I like the sunken car.

ECONOBLOGARAMA: This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up. Early!

GATEWAY PUNDIT has more on violence in Uzbekistan, including video.

THIS WEEK’S CARNIVAL OF THE NBA IS UP, for those interested in hoopblogging.

And for those interested in a different kind of shooting, the latest Carnival of Cordite is up, too.

GEE, THANKS GUYS:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it may have erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to victims of deadly violence sparked by the article.

Two points: (1) If they had wrongly reported the race of a criminal and produced a lynching, they’d feel much worse — which is why they generally don’t report such things, a degree of sensitivity they don’t extend to reporting on, you know, minor topics like wars; and (2) If a blogger had made a similar mistake, with similar consequences, we’d be hearing about Big Media’s superior fact-checking and layers of editors.

People died, and U.S. military and diplomatic efforts were damaged, because — let’s be clear here — Newsweek was too anxious to get out a story that would make the Bush Administration and the military look bad.

UPDATE: Reader John Lynch says I’m wrong:

Newsweek isn’t the problem. The problem is that people will kill over a book being desecrated. Actually, over a anonymous report buried within a third rate weekly magazine. There is something wrong when people value a book, of which there are millions, over human lives. This is the real problem, and Newsweek isn’t the source of it. The problem is an ignorant and violent subculture within the islamic world, and the general lack of tolerance about religion therein.

Well, there’s plenty of blame to go around. But in this light, where are the “transgressive artists” — Andres Serrano, this means you! — who are willing to take on this mindset in the name of free speech, desensitizing the religious fanatics through repeated acts of outrageousness? Sure, some of them will probably be car-bombed, but bravely transgressive artists surely wouldn’t let that discourage them from bravely demonstrating their commitment to trashing icons. Right?

ANOTHER UPDATE: N.Z. Bear despins the defensive spin.

Meanwhile, even before Newsweek’s admission, Hubrisblog was noting the implausibility of the claim. Certainly my copy of the Koran is way too big to fit down a toilet, and it’s in fairly small print. I should note that StrategyPage — and, by extension, InstaPundit, since I linked StrategyPage’s post on Thursday — was also ahead of the curve on this one, for reasons having nothing to do with toilet technology.

Reader Daniel McAndrew emails: “If the book were the Holy Bible of Christian faith (that was desecrated) then wouldn’t there also be riots resulting??”

I don’t recall any riots resulting from Serrano’s Piss Christ, or the large number of tiresomely blasphemous imitators he spawned.

MORE: Michael Demmons agrees with John Lynch: “Yeah, Newsweek screwed up badly, but the death and destruction is a result of crazy, psychopathic people incapable of forming a rational response that doesn’t include, well, killing and destruction.”

At a larger, moral level this may be true. But given that this was entirely predictable given that (1) Al Qaeda propaganda turns on stuff like this; and (2) Historically, such rumors have been used to stir up trouble in the region (remember the Sepoy Revolt, based on false rumors that the British greased their cartridges with pig fat?). If the folks at Newsweek are too ignorant to realize this, or too sloppy to care, then they shouldn’t be in the news business.

DAVID GREENBERG, who guest-blogged for Daniel Drezner, writes about his experience in The New York Times. Shockingly, it turns out that not just anyone can blog well.

Ann Althouse, Pejman Yousefzadeh, and Sheila O’Malley comment on Greenberg’s experience.

I WAS ON RELIABLE SOURCES earlier today with Dan Okrent and Arianna Huffington. Trey Jackson has the video. The subject of puppy-blending came up.

I should note that Huffington exaggerated my role in the Trent Lott affair — or, at least, failed to give sufficient credit to Atrios and Josh Marshall.

SOMEONE TELL MICHAEL MOORE: “A strongly pro-war film has been premiered at the Cannes film festival – and it comes from Iraq. . . . It is framed by scenes of the main characters, now exiled in France, rejoicing at the fall of Baghdad in 2003.”

STRATEGYPAGE on Operation Matador:

The foreign terrorists are, to put it mildly, disliked even in this part of Iraq. Although the local smugglers have been making some money working for the terrorists, everyone knows that these wild eyed foreigners mean only death for Iraqis. Either from their suicide bombs, or the battles between them and American and Iraqi troops, the terrorists are considered bad news and best avoided. In fact, the marines received a friendly reception in many villages, the people relieved to see someone who could run off the terrorists and restore order. Iraqi police, troops and border guards have come in behind the marine operation, as the Iraqi government has not had any presence in this area since early 2003, and not much before that. . . .

An increasing number of Sunni Arab leaders have distanced themselves from the terrorists. Nearly five hundred Iraqis have been killed by terrorist attacks so far this month, and few Iraqi Sunnis can put a positive spin on this any more. . . . While Sunni Arab propaganda, especially outside Iraq, blames all this on “the American occupation,” inside Iraq the mayhem is blamed on foreign fanatics, particularly from Saudi Arabia. Iraq and Saudi Arabia have never had a cozy relationship, and that long standing tension has been pumped up because of all those terror attacks carried out by Saudi Arabian Islamic radicals.

The Saudis are going to have a problem with a larger, unhappy neighbor unless they clean up their act.

BILL GATES says that cellphones will kill the iPod. That’s funny, because at BlogNashville Dan Gillmor was showing me his cellphone / MP3 player and saying that he didn’t listen to his iPod anymore.

WILL FRANKLIN has a roundup on the Taiwanese elections, which can’t have pleased Beijing.

THE NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS:

WASHINGTON, May 14 – Several of the nation’s most prominent environmentalists have gone public with the message that nuclear power, long taboo among environmental advocates, should be reconsidered as a remedy for global warming.

Their numbers are still small, but they represent growing cracks in what had been a virtually solid wall of opposition to nuclear power among most mainstream environmental groups. In the past few months, articles in publications like Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wired magazine have openly espoused nuclear power, angering other environmental advocates.

If you want to have a technological civilization, and not emit C0₂, nuclear power is pretty much the only way to go at the moment.

THE AUTONOMIST is liveblogging the Muslim anti-terror rally in D.C. But where are the photos? We want photos!

UPDATE: Now there are photos!

ANOTHER UPDATE: More reporting, and photos (including one of Judith Weiss from Kesher Talk), here.

SPEAKING OF LOCAL-BLOGGING: Dan Gillmor’s Bayosphere is getting ready to launch.

A “DENIM REVOLUTION” in Canada?

MICHELLE MALKIN: “Hug a Thug” doesn’t work.

LIVING OFF THE LAND: Wretchard has a traveling-light approach to the blog reporting kit I wrote about earlier. And here’s what Bill Quick is going with.

UPDATE: Bill’s got a local-blogging project in the works, too.

TOUR THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE: Shanti Mangala is hosting the latest Blog Mela.

LOADS OF WAR NEWS, over at Bill Roggio’s excellent blog, The Fourth Rail. Just keep scrolling.

TIM WORSTALL notes a new UN report on Iraqi casualties that’s rather at odds with the Lancet report, and wonders why it’s not getting nearly as much attention. “Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m way off base or something, actually wanting attention paid to this new report, perhaps the same amount of attention as was paid to the one that came out just before a US Presidential election.”

UPDATE: Tim Blair has more, including a dialogue with the other Australian Tim.

ANOTHER UPDATE: The other time comes in for criticism.

STRATEGYPAGE LOOKS AT JAPAN’S MILITARY PROSPECTS:

Japan reprocesses plutonium for its many nuclear power plants, which gives it the ability to make nuclear weapons if it needs to, and it does have a strong space-launch capability (many ICBMs have become the means to launch satellites and other vehicles into space). Japan could have a working nuclear weapons capability in one year should they decide to.

The underlying truth is that at this time, Japan is arguably the strongest power in East Asia – and it is at this point with one hand tied behind its back. Should Japan be pushed to the point where it feels it needs to use all the military power it is capable of generating, it could readily become a superpower in military terms. . . . The only reason Japan is not a superpower is because it has chosen not to pursue that course.

This may change, if the Chinese continue to seem interested in pursuing an expansionist policy.

SISYPHEAN MUSINGS has thoughts on recruitment and retention, in the context of the Army’s new 15-month hitch. His take seems quite right to me.