Pen-Elayne on the Web

Connecting the Dots

And darned if they don't all form a picture of Karl Rove again. As Teresa has said more than once, I deeply resent the way this administration makes me feel like a nutbar conspiracy theorist, but it's not really a conspiracy theory when you can determine a precise and repeatable pattern, is it? So we have John and Chris at AmericaBlog saying "we think President Bush placed a little call to the head of Newsweek, asking him to beg off the story [about religious desecration at Guantanamo] since riots are now spreading across the Middle East," because the story itself is pretty solid ("this is not the first time the story has been reported about US authorities flushing the Koran down the toilet at Gitmo"). Joe then reports that "The White House spent the day attacking Newsweek," leading to Newsweek retracting its story. Avedon notes, "Watch for an attempt to do to Michael Isikoff what they did to Dan Rather." (And also watch for Priscilla Owen, "another Rove work in progress," but I digress.) Sure enough, as Susie observes, "It’s not Rathergate, but the media is spinning it that way. There were numerous recorded instances of Quran desecration – just that Newsweek attributed it to the wrong source document." And Bill Connolly notes, "I think Arthur Silber says what needs to be said about the Newsweek 'Koran-flushing' controversy. His point that the ensuing brouhaha will be used to wash the Downing Street memo story down the drain is particularly cogent, and important." I agree - and again, this is pure Rovian misdirection.