White House Plays Down New Quran Reports

[Kadie]

White House Plays Down New Quran Reports
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, June 4, 2005


(06-04) 15:18 PDT Crawford, Texas (AP) --


snip...
The story stirred worldwide controversy and the Bush administration blamed it for deadly demonstrations in Afghanistan. Saying America's image abroad had suffered irreparable damage, the White House responded with a verbal offensive against the media.


On Saturday, a day after the Pentagon described a series of cases of U.S. personnel mishandling the Quran, the White House downplayed the issue.


"It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

Joe Lockhart, former press secretary for President Clinton, said that when a news organization — such as Newsweek — makes a factual mistake, White House officials are tempted to try to discredit the entire story.


"I think on this issue, they fell into a trap," Lockhart said. "They saw a way to push back on a damaging story by making it look like it was just out-of-control journalists, and now they've had to admit that it has happened."


more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/06/04/national/w130146D66.DTL


out of context? Oh right, they were just having a big ol party that got a little out of control. Nothing to see here folks.

[Jack Rabbit]

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2. Surely nothing to see here: there is no hypocrisy, no double-standard