Required Reading

Lunch with Megan McArdle, followed by some shopping on Jermyn Street. (If you ever find yourself there and in need of a suit, stop in at Roderick Charles. I just bought a charcoal herringbone double-breasted number there, and it's undoubtedly the finest thing I've ever owned. And for a very reasonable price. Anyway.)

Yeah, well Newsweek knew how the Flushed Koran story ended, too, didn't they?

This stuff just makes me mad, because the media is acting like an spoiled . Michael Isikoff and Newsweek screwed up, and people died.

Now, McClellan makes the perfectly reasonable suggestion that Newsweek maybe, possibly take a little more responsiblity than they did on Monday. I'm sorry, but the Modified Limited Hangout wasn't enough for Nixon in '73, and it's not good enough for Newsweek in '05.

Instead... instead we get more of these goddamned Gotcha Journalism games.

Newsweek knows what it ought to do -- exactly what McClellan suggested. But because a government official suggested it, Newsweek (and the entire press in general, it seems) feels free to keep doing the wrong thing.

That's the attitude of a spoiled , who won't do something he or she knows she should (or might even really want to) simply because Mommy or Daddy told them to do it.

Most blogs are more grown up than that -- and most blogs are written by teenagers.

So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get back to my vacation now and do some grown-up things.

UPDATE: More here from James Dunnigan. Money line: "Newsweek, like most American media, is known to have higher standards than al Qaeda propagandists. But not that high."