Posted on 09/18/2006 8:13:55 AM PDT by lowbridge
NEWSWEEK “Isikoffed” the Gonzales Memo
Since Christopher Hitchens is correcting old Dowdified quotes, I thought I’d correct one myself. This one, from a 2004 NEWSWEEK article, is a major Dowdification — in my view, every bit as egregious as Dowd’s original. What’s more, it’s still influencing lefties even today.
Worse, unlike Dowd’s alteration of a Bush quote, the NEWSWEEK story didn’t even use an ellipsis to indicate what was missing. By altering an Alberto Gonzales quote in this way, NEWSWEEK managed to make Gonzales and the Bush Administration appear unreasonably dismissive of the Geneva Convention.
The story was co-authored by Michael Isikoff — the reporter behind NEWSWEEK’s infamous Koran-in-the-toilet story that resulted in deadly riots in several Arab countries. Accordingly, I suggest that when a quote is altered without any hint that it has been changed, the quote should be described as having been “Isikoffed.”
Here are the details of how the Gonzales torture memo was “Isikoffed” by NEWSWEEK:
The quote is from a May 24, 2004 NEWSWEEK story by Isikoff, John Barry, and Michael Hirsh. Here is the quote, with the relevant portion in bold type:
By Jan. 25, 2002, according to a memo obtained by NEWSWEEK, it was clear that Bush had already decided that the Geneva Conventions did not apply at all, either to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. . . . “As you have said, the war against terrorism is a new kind of war,” Gonzales wrote to Bush. . . . Gonzales concluded in stark terms: “In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”
There is no ellipsis at the end of the last sentence. If you believe NEWSWEEK, the sentence ended there. The way NEWSWEEK quoted Gonzales, it sounded as though Gonzales thought Geneva Convention restrictions on coercive interrogations were “quaint.” Leftists across the nation went nuts.
Just one problem: NEWSWEEK altered the quote, chopping Gonzales’s final sentence in half. This alteration completely changed its meaning. What’s more, the NEWSWEEK quotation did nothing to indicate that the end of the sentence had been lopped off.
Let’s go to the source — Gonzales’s original memo. The following is Gonzales’s entire quote, taken straight from Page 2 of his memo. I have bolded the part that NEWSWEEK removed:
In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, script (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.”
Instead of including the bold material after the word “provisions,” the NEWSWEEK article simply sliced off the end of the sentence, and put a period after the word “provisions” — as if the sentence ended there. Not even an ellipsis remained to signify that the sentence had been truncated, and its meaning distorted beyond recognition.
As is clear when one reads Gonzales’s actual quote, Gonzales was talking about things that actually were quaint. As it happens, a New York Times magazine piece from yesterday described the warden of Guantánamo Bay struggling with the issue of how to apply the Geneva Conventions — and summarily rejecting the idea that he had any obligation to implement the antiquated provisions referred to in the Gonzales memo:
[Col. Mike Bumgarner, the warden of Guantánamo Bay] thought it obvious that many of the rights would never apply to Guantánamo detainees. No one was going to allow the distribution of “musical instruments” to suspected terrorists, as the 1940’s-era conventions stipulated for the captured soldiers of another army. No one was going to pay the detainees a stipend to spend at a base canteen.
Despite the fact that Gonzales was on target with his observation regarding the Convention’s “quaint” provisions, many lefty blogs linked the NEWSWEEK piece, and quoted the Dowdified version as evidence of the evil intent of the Bush Administration. TalkLeft, Kevin Drum, and Josh Marshall all reproduced the Isikoffed quote. The story was also linked by Duncan Black. Not one of these blogs noted the Dowdification — nor did any of the other major blogs that cited the story, as evidenced by a check of the Memeorandum entry for the NEWSWEEK story. The story is still repeated on lefty blogs. In May of this year, it was linked by Arianna Huffington — and it was even linked yesterday, by lefty HuffPo blogger Harry Shearer.
Indeed, to my knowledge, not a single blog on the Web noticed that the quote in the NEWSWEEK story had been Dowdified Isikoffed — until today.
It’s true that NEWSWEEK was not the only media outlet to distort Gonzales’s memo. Many media outlets and commentators ripped the word “quaint” out of context to make it sound like Gonzales thought the entirety of the Geneva Convention was “quaint.” In an ironic twist, Maureen Dowd herself did exactly this. In his outgoing piece titled 13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did, long-suffering New York Times ombudsman Dan Okrent complained:
Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales “called the Geneva Conventions ‘quaint’ ” nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments.
It’s bad enough that so many outlets used the word “quaint” out of context to smear Gonzales and his position. But to my knowledge, NEWSWEEK is the only outlet that purported to quote the relevant passage in its “entirety” — while chopping off the relevant context without any hint that it had ever existed.
The altered quote is obviously deliberate; Gonzales’s sentence was truncated for a reason. What’s more, Michael Isikoff, the co-author of the piece, is the reporter primarily responsible for the bogus “Koran in the toilet” story that resulted in deadly riots across the Arab world. You don’t get things this wrong this often unless there’s a reason. Fool me twice, won’t get fooled again.
I mean, even Maureen Dowd had the decency to use an ellipsis!
Gonzales wasn’t just Dowdified. What happened to him was worse: he was Isikoffed.
Spikey's been a naughty boy? Again? Who'd'a thunk it?
This is not surprising, from Isikoff.
Isikoff was the first reporter to get the Monical Lewinsky story. After discussing it with the editors, they agreed all round to spike it, because it was negative about their man Clinton, and they didn't want to be party to that.
Someone at Newsweek that disagreed leaked the story to Drudge, which is how Matt Drudge came to break the dominating story of Clinton's presidency.
A reporter that would spike s story to keep the public in the dark about important facts about a politician, is a reporter whose ethics allow him to alter a quote, as he does here.
As you see, the more and more you look at the enemedia the more its stars are exposed as Jayson Blair on stilts.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Can you imagine someone doing this to Clinton(s)?
They'd have crashed his plane into Fort Marcy Park, before shooting him in the head.
WOW!!
Great post!
You have got to see this.
I would just as well support executions for "reporters" that purposely misquote sources that ends up aiding the enemies as the Koran story did.
Great description. Is it yours? May I use it in a tagline?
Please ping whatever lists you have and keep this one bumped.
There's a lot more here than just the duplicitous shenenigans of Spikey Mikey.
In my opinion it throws a whole new look at the antiquated Geneva Convention.
Unbelieveable.
Worse, unlike Dowd’s alteration of a Bush quote, the NEWSWEEK story didn’t even use an ellipsis to indicate what was missing. By altering an Alberto Gonzales quote in this way, NEWSWEEK managed to make Gonzales and the Bush Administration appear unreasonably dismissive of the Geneva Convention.The story was co-authored by Michael Isikoff — the reporter behind NEWSWEEK’s infamous Koran-in-the-toilet story that resulted in deadly riots in several Arab countries. Accordingly, I suggest that when a quote is altered without any hint that it has been changed, the quote should be described as having been “Isikoffed.”
Ain't enough dirt in the whole state of Arkansas to put this down for a nap.
As long as we don't let 'em.
Text out of context has a pretext. This is why you cannot trust the MSM. Thank God for FR.
There has been many deaths as a result of faulty reporting because while most Freeper take with a grain of salt most of what they read in the MSM and press some people, including terrorist, hinge their lives on every distorted or lying view that is reported and the MSM knows it.
BUMP!
Thanks for your excellent summary of Ickyoff.
Ickyoff is a pimp, who lies and covers up for the rats and in particuliar the Clintoons, while pretending to be a journalist.
Ickyoff showed his true colors during the Monica Lips mess.
The owners and controllers of the Washington Post hired Ickyoff to pimp, lie and cover up for the rats in power.
Ickyoff as you noted is just another Jason Blair in white drag.
I agree that "enemedia" is an excellent description of the ABCCBSNBSTimesTimeTimesNewsweekGlobeEtcetera axis of evil, but I cannot claim to have originated it. I lifted it myself, from a poster in one of the Bilal Hussein threads yesterday.
Bilal Hussein is a sunni terrorist who moonlights for AP and is one of their Pulitzer Prize-winning gang of murderers.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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