Treasonable Bias

Newsweek has retracted its story that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Qur'an. They made a mistake, they say. Meanwhile people have been killed in rioting in Afghanistan, and the US image around the world has been done irreparable harm. Like the calumny against Proctor & Gamble (they were repeatedly accused of encouraging witchcraft until they changed their charming Man-in-the-Moon logo), this story will resurface indefinitely, because so many people either want to believe it, or - more to the point - want others to believe it. I suspect that Newsweek took the attitude that "Yeah, that sounds like something those bastards would do," and printed the story without corroboration. If so, then they have given aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war. If they weren't journalists, it would be treason.