The real point…

Via the LA Times.

The more interesting question may not be how Newsweek goofed, but why the Muslim world is so ready to believe the story. For all the administration's huffing and puffing about Newsweek getting the story wrong, it has produced such a catalog of misdeeds at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that almost any allegation is instantly credited abroad. The administration itself has said that 11 soldiers have been disciplined for abusing prisoners at Gitmo.

Of course, it's not just a problem abroad. How many Americans, of any ideological stripe, read the news and said "Oh, we'd never do that!"? How many, in fact, read the news and applauded the notion of using sacrilege against Islam as a creative tactic?

(…and whether Newsweek actually 'goofed', at least in terms of whether the behavior described actually happened, is an open question. One that many are still inclined to answer 'yes'…)