Holy Crap.

Via Andrew Sullivan (in turn via Kevin Drum), I see that someone named LaShawn Barber writes this:

Let me clear up one thing. Whether Americans flushed the Koran down the toilet is irrelevant. Newsweek should not have reported it, even if true.

I honestly cannot believe this. It completely staggers me. The press is not to report any facts, any facts at all, that might paint a less-than-favorable picture of America. The only acceptable role of the media to the most vocal members of the Right is that of distributor of pro-American propaganda. Anything else, and they immediately start bleating about "liberal bias".

You know the old saw, "My country, right or wrong"? That's not actually the entire thing. The whole thing goes, "Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right." We're a great nation, but we're not a perfect nation, and to insist on a media that pretends that we are is the height of stupid hubris.

Read the entirety of Sullivan's post, which makes clear that the Right simply doesn't care about the facts in any case. The facts, whether accurate in the case of Abu Ghraib or inaccurate in the case of the Newsweek fiasco, just don't matter. America can never be allowed, in their eyes, to be the villain; never mind the unpleasant reality that since America is an imperfect country run by imperfect people, sometimes America actually is the villain.

Lance Mannion has more. He's quite a bit more forceful about it.