With the usual Friday dumping of bad news from the Bush Admin (done so b/c supposedly people don't look at Saturday's paper/watch news, so the bad news won't have an immediate impact) comes the news that some soldiers did abuse the Koran, although not by flushing it down the toilet. Many people seem to see this as an exoneration of Newsweek's original story.
I don't think so.
Saying you got the essence of the argument right, but the facts wrong, is still a wrong argument. (for example, isn't that what the argument about Iraq switched to once it became clear there were no WMDs? "He would have eventually gotten them...") You aren't allowed to say that because something similar happened, that makes your wrong story okay. Newsweek still blew it big time, and needs to get better.
By the same token, the Bush Admin's holier-than-thou attitude towards Newsweek took a giant knock. Acting as though nothing at all was wrong with how the soldiers were acting, and now having to retreat not so gracefully, was a big misstep - something that seems to be more common in the second term. Fatigue setting in already?
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