Blame the messenger
Do you really think these people are just angry because of Newsweek?
Shadow of the Hegemon analyses the rightwing’s handling of the Newsweek story:
If it can be reversed, however, then the admissions of fault on one side can be matched up against the hardheaded repetition of the other, and the conclusion will be that the latter must be correct. On individual issues, all it takes is one small mistake to open up a crack in credibility and the whole thing dies. That’s what Newsweek provided, even though it’s well known that torture techniques involving the desecration of the Koran take place. Torture will continue, but reportage of it is enormously weakened in the United States, because the media will be terrified of being burned again.
(Sure, Bush’s arguments may not be credible, but a growing variation on the old Microsoft truism is in play: nobody gets fired for buying Bush.)
What’s truly worrisome is the allegations that people died due to Newsweek’s reportage. I’m smelling “more in sorrow than in anger” censorship here, a new and improved “loose lips sink ships” aimed at Wrongspeak. Every reporter who finds out how brutal the treatment of prisoners has become will be hounded by those saying that he could kill people. Some of those people will be editors. Others will be shareholders. Others will be winger bloggers, who won’t care whether or not it’s true or not if it contradicts the party line.