There was no Thursday May 13 Countdown - !!

Oops, put the wrong date in, thanks for pointing it out. Fixed.

Olbermann will give us the "fake but accurate" line of (un)reasoning tonight concerning the controversial Newsweek story about psychological torture.

The spin will be: We know there have been abuses in the past, the Pentagon didn't immediately deny this story, therefore the administration is at least as culpable as Newsweek, and the story is likely true, regardless.

The anti-war feeling among journalists and MSNBC pundits... is so intense and their belief that the media rolled over for the administration early in the Iraqi war so irksome to them, that there is nothing they could do that would generate introspection on their part.

Let alone, to analyse the totalitarian nature of those riots and to understand what the hell it is that the West is up against. And too, to understand that they may believe their lack of the most minute sense of patriotism makes them credible, but they'd still be the first group these fanatics would hang from the rafters.

It's amazing. These folks won't even replay the footage of the Twin Towers coming down for fear that it will cause violence against Muslims, but they have no trouble shifting blame for this mess.

Like keeping pressure on communism despite the media's spin of moral eqivalency during the Cold War, it's up the adults to try and open up these societies and this breed of Islam so that there won't be a WWIII in the future.

Watched Chris Matthew's last night on Hardball's late night rerun and was amazed at the coverage of the Newsweek thing.

During the discussion it was revealed that Newsweek's standard for verifying items (two sources) is lower than the Washington Post's (Newsweek's parent company) standard of three.

THIS was treated as INCIDENTAL to what Matthews saw as the more important aspects of the story, that politicians were playing politics with the matter (gasp!) and that the Pentagon was using the story to get even with the media and as a cover for the injustices at Abu Ghraib.

Love means never having to say you're sorry... well, being in the media means never having to say you're sorry.... for very long, anyway...

Hi Cecilia, what stands out to me about this story is something you alluded to in your first comment. How crazy is it that riots and killings occur because someone flushed some papers down a toilet? If in fact they did? I think we are all being held hostage to a crazy violent religion. What no one is talking about is how awful it is that the Muslim world is so waxed about the Koran that they kill each other. It is insane.

I think Newsweek made a mistake, and I do agree that it is because of their anit-Bush, anti-war bias. But it isn't that bad of a mistake taken in any kind of normal context. But Islamofascism and how mind warped the Arab governments have made their Muslim citizens with lies about the West is the real story here.

You're right.

Can you imagine an identical story, but with James Dobson followers (or Christian fundamentalists in general) similarly reacting to a desecration of the Bible and then the news media (lest of all Olbermann) NOT making the psychosis of that reaction a story as well?

Olbermann has been so bold....outspoken.... so fearless....[insert any accolade] here in his slams and mockery of Dobsonites who emailed him over his story inferring that Dobson had labeled SpongeBob a 'gay cartoon character'. Let's see him slam Muslim fundamentalists.

Our bold, brave, outspoken host, who is shielding his show from rightwing control, isn't that crazy...