Bush Aide Says Newsweek Report Damages U.S. Image

“This report has had serious consequences,” White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said today in West Point, Virginia, where the president was giving a speech. “It has caused damage to the image of the United States abroad and people have lost their lives.”

The lies spread by the Bush administration have cost the lives of over one thousand Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the tens of thousands of non-American lives (which they conveniently do not track). This news article may have contributed to 16 deaths in riots.

Newsweek certainly should (and has) apologize for publishing an article that turned out to be false (apparently). That does not mean that the rest of the media should back off and let the Administration get away with pinning all of the blame on Newsweek. Newsweek did not put hundreds of Muslims in jail, without charges and without access to attorneys. Newsweek did not send troops to Iraq under the premise of destroying Saddam’s WMD capabilities. That was all Bush and his subordinates.

And where are the Democrats in all of this? I’ve yet to see an article or a press release from them denouncing President Bush’s efforts to shift the blame on to Newsweek. What is the point of having a multi-party system (ie: > 1) when one party is too scared to speak out against the other?

OK, enough ranting from me for now. Not like more than a couple people read this anyways.