Mark Steyn: Nice Goin’, Guys [Newsweek is much easier to flush]

National Review Online ^ | June 6, 2005 | Mark Steyn

[Constitution Day]

happy warrior

MARK STEYN

Nice Goin’, Guys
Newsweek is much easier to flush.

To us old Fleet Street hands, Michael Isikoff will always be the guy who lost the Monica scoop. He had the Lewinsky story first, but his bosses at Newsweek killed it at the last minute. They wanted more sources, more corroboration: It’s all very well having presidential DNA on the intern’s cocktail dress, but we really need a second stain on a second dress before it would be responsible to run this thing. If you can’t get a second dress, the Columbia Journalism School Book of Media Ethics says it’s okay to make do with a cashmere sweater, as long as it’s in an approved pastel shade (the sweater, not the stain). The point is, on a big scoop like this, we need to get everything nailed down airtight, even if that means we don’t break it until, oh, somewhere round the middle of Al Gore’s second term.

So Isikoff lost his story, and Drudge broke it instead and made his name. Flash-forward seven years to the spring of 2005: Isikoff is still at work at Newsweek, possibly still working on trying to nail down his Monica scoop. Suddenly, “a knowledgeable U.S. government source” tips him off on a hot story: At Guantanamo Bay, interrogators got prisoners to talk by flushing a copy of the Koran down the toilet. Like all stories, this scoop immediately went through the full, exhaustive, ultra-rigorous Newsweek editing process. Thus, the spelling of “Koran” was changed to the more culturally sensitive “Qur’an.” A senior editor then took a further look at the controversial story and said, “Hmm. I dunno. Shouldn’t it be ‘Qu’ran’? Or maybe ‘Q’u’r-an’? I’d be happier if we could get a couple of extra apostrophes in there . . .”

And then they ran the story. And, as we now know, it sparked riots in Pakistan and elsewhere that left 15 people dead. And, unlike the fact-checked-to-death Monica story, the Qu’ran-down-the-to’ilet story turned out to be — what’s the word? — untrue.

As should have been obvious even to Isikoff and his colleagues. Is it possible to flush a Koran down the toilet? It takes a bit of effort to get even an average issue of Newsweek down and round the bend. I tried flushing Michael Isikoff’s Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story down there and wound up getting water all over my wingtips and squelching off in my socks to call a plumber. And Isikoff’s book is only 416 pages. My copy of the Q’u’r’an is 950 pages, though if you reduce the apostrophes you can get it down under 800. The suras-down-the-septic story was an obvious crock. All it had going for it was that the magazine wanted it to be true.

“It’s important to remember,” Isikoff told the Washington Post, “there was absolutely no lapse in journalistic standards here.” And that’s true. The fake Koran-flushing lives up entirely to the CBS bogus National Guard memos: an honest mistake that, like all the mainstream media’s honest mistakes, is a mistake that will, if true, damage the Bush administration. By contrast, when the Swiftvets come along, whoa, hold your horses, let’s get the slo-mo fact-checkers in for three or four months, at least until, say, mid-November. The only difference this time around is that there seems to be some serious damage to America’s reputation in parts of the Muslim world otherwise well disposed to the Great Satan — Afghanistan notably — and the little matter of 15 corpses, which makes Michael Isikoff considerably more lethal than, say, Lynndie England.

The rules for this sort of thing are well known. Last year, an old leftie Scots pal of mine, Alistair Beaton, wrote an anti-war “satire” which included Bush and Blair singing “We’re Sending You a Cluster Bomb from Jesus.” Ha-ha. Alistair’s play opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in England and did boffo biz. In his merciless evisceration of Bush-Blair and the radical Christian threat to world peace, Alistair was operating in the tradition of bold, courageous, transgressive artists without whom a free society cannot survive. And happily, crazy as they are, these Christian fundamentalist types don’t tend to be waiting for you at the stage door. Whereas, if you write, “We’re Sending You a Schoolgirl Bomb from Allah,” you attract a somewhat livelier crowd, and it’s hard to pick up showbiz awards for your boldness, courage, transgressiveness, etc., when you’re six feet under. Ask Theo van Gogh. As a rule, if you’re going to be “provocative,” it’s best to do it with people who can’t be provoked.

Journalists understand this, too. When Christians get hot and bothered about a horny Jesus (The Last Temptation of Christ), a gay Jesus (Terrence McNally’s Broadway play Corpus Christi), or a Jesus floating in the artist’s urine (Piss Christ), columnists take to the barricades to champion the cause of free speech. When Muslim groups closed down a play in Cleveland because its revolting apologia for a Palestinian suicide bomber was insufficiently pro-Muslim, the silence of the media lambs was deafening.

But somehow, when it’s the merest hint of a rumor of a canard about Bush stooges flushing the Koran down the toilet, Newsweek doesn’t bother thinking through the consequences. That’s the real problem here: not the reflex leftism but the pathetic hicky parochialism of a U.S. media unable to see things except through the tunnel vision of domestic partisan advantage. Who’s really the “culturally insensitive” ones here?

[MortMan]

As should have been obvious even to Isikoff and his colleagues. Is it possible to flush a Koran down the toilet? It takes a bit of effort to get even an average issue of Newsweek down and round the bend.

ROFLMAO!!!

I tried flushing Michael Isikoff’s Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter’s Story down there and wound up getting water all over my wingtips and squelching off in my socks to call a plumber. And Isikoff’s book is only 416 pages. My copy of the Q’u’r’an is 950 pages, though if you reduce the apostrophes you can get it down under 800. The suras-down-the-septic story was an obvious crock.

IOW - They're not only on the other side in this battle, they're acting (?) really, really STOOOOOOPID, too. ROFLMAO-AGAIN!!!!!!!!

[hattend]

Steyn Rocks! BTTT

[McGavin999]

That’s the real problem here: not the reflex leftism but the pathetic hicky parochialism of a U.S. media unable to see things except through the tunnel vision of domestic partisan advantage. Who’s really the “culturally insensitive” ones here?

This bears repeating!

[baseballmom]

Thanks for the ping, Pokey.

Thanks for posting Constitution Day.

I love Steyn. The Babe Ruth of columnists.

[baseballmom]

Please add me to your Lilek's list, Constitution Day.

Thanks for linking to that article. I would have missed it.

[Constitution Day]

Sure thing!

Glad you enjoyed that.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for the wonderful ping, Pokey!

[BADROTOFINGER]

As a rule, if you’re going to be “provocative,” it’s best to do it with people who can’t be provoked.

That line alone is pure genius, and is so true of all the Christian bashing progressives of our society. Bash Christians and pretend to live in fear of them at the same time...JFK

[Colonel_Flagg]

Best.
Steyn.
Ever.

Superb effort by the best in the business.

[maica]

That’s the real problem here: not the reflex leftism but the pathetic hicky parochialism of a U.S. media unable to see things except through the tunnel vision of domestic partisan advantage. Who’s really the “culturally insensitive” ones here?

Wow! Serious professional slam here!!! And our uber-elites in "MSM" are so sensitive to criticism from Europeans! This must really sting!

[SquirrelKing]

Yes! Been waiting for this to get posted! Thanks, Pokey.

[mylife]

Steyn cuts thru the BS and hits the Mark again!

[Victoria Delsoul]

The only difference this time around is that there seems to be some serious damage to America’s reputation in parts of the Muslim world otherwise well disposed to the Great Satan — Afghanistan notably — and the little matter of 15 corpses, which makes Michael Isikoff considerably more lethal than, say, Lynndie England.

Ha! Well said.

[GOPJ]

bump

[Fledermaus]

Just when I think Mark cannot possibly top himself...WHAP! He does.

I was laughing so hard I lost by breath.

[Zivasmate]

Mark Steyn is to Michael Isikoff what Wayne Gretzky is to
Jason Giambi.

[Ruth A.]

Agreed.

[foreshadowed at waco]

the pathetic hicky parochialism of a U.S. media

I love this line...as a lifelong New Yorker I just love all the liberal elites in the media who think they are so intellectually superior to everyone who doesn't see the world as they do.

I'm a NYC schoolteacher and the best 'stop them cold' line I have come up with when talking about the media bias of the NYTimes (who liberals think is an objective view of the world) is wondering why there was no outcry when Condoleeza Rice was portrayed as Aunt Jemima...its shuts them up BIG TIME...racism is considered an even bigger sin than voting for a Republican in politically correct circles.

It also kills them when I ask why the Democrats keep voting against sonograms for poor women or when I use the term 'abortion industry'...it doesn't pay to argue but I love to insert little jabs at appropriate moments. They have no comeback lines and it sure wipes their superior smirks off their superior mouths.

[knighthawk]

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