incrementalism would be dead

* normanmailer: "the gaffe over the Michael Isikoff story in Newsweek concerning the Koran and the toilet is redolent with bad odor. " LINK

* "The Newsweek retraction story is on Page 1 of the New York Times, Page 1 of the LA Times, and Page 3 of the Washington Post. That's pretty strong coverage for a story about a newsmagazine retracting a small error in a short piece from two weeks ago." LINK

* msnbc puts together a blog-history-vid of the 'newsweek' story, and they basically find that the story had nothing to do with newsweek (or, in fact, korans-in-the-can) , and that the whole thing came out of imran khans dissing of musharaff. and btw - there arent any anti-flushing riots in iraq. or iran. LINK


ok - so we know that the newsweek thing is manufactured outrage - the interesting question for me is whether they actually planned the story pre-emptively, or if they decided they needed an outrage, and decided to reach back and find one from a couple of weeks ago.

the evidence for the fact that they planned it is kinda weak - that they were offered to comment on the story and opted to let the story slide. this could also simply mean that they didnt have a problem with it. and btw - does every story have to get checked through the military before it goes out? (newsweek apparently didnt think the story was particularly significant, cos it had been reported before, and they didnt write a real story about it)

assuming that they didnt plant the story then, it probably changes the way we need to interpret the story - ie. presumably if they planted the story, then we could ascribe more significance into it - such as them making an intentional, specific effort to make sure that no-one ever believes the media again.

so, if they didnt create the story in advance, then we can assume for a minute that they were reacting to some perceived threat - and they were apparently in such a hurry, that rather than creating a proper, more effective, story from scratch, they seemed to reach into the past to grab some odd story that is absurd at face value (given, for starters, that the story has been reported for 2 years without causing riots or media navel-gazing, and that quagmyers had already proved the story false)). were/are they panicking? and if so, why?
remember the nickberg story? they got that one to the floor of congress within 24 hours - so why did they have to go and retrospectively find another from the vaults?
and did newsweek/iskikoff simply draw the short straw?

the reason that this distinction is significant is because if they planned the story from the start, and chose newsweek/iskikoff specifically, then it signals a new shift, where they arent just complaining about the left-wing socialist rag the nyt, as something that can easily be met by a redvoter with a dismissive shrug, but they are discrediting anything to the left of a rabid clinton hater. ie, they arent fucking around the edges anymore. if this is the case, they are saying to ampublic 'you cant believe ANYTHING the media prints' - which could be a precursor to some horrible events. if this logic of mine is valid, then theyll continue to do the same not just in the media, but also on campus, and on judges, and everything you can think of - its the equivalent of revoking boltons '10 floors' comment about the UN, and replacing it with '25 floors' - ie incrementalism would be dead.

however, it seems that they didnt plan this in advance, so we can probably ignore the above - but it leaves the apparent alternative that they are really panicked, and had to create a smokestorm for some other reason.

why would they wanna do that? were they nervous about the pakistani riots and trying to create an ex-poste justification? or did they decide that they need a scapegoat or smokescreen for something that is imminent?

for one reason or other, they wanted a shitstorm, and they got one...