Patterico Suggests a New Word for the Dictionary

Isikoffed — He suggests that “when a quote is altered without any hint that it has been changed, the quote should be described as having been ‘Isikoffed.’”

I agree, because that’s exactly what Patterico has caught Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff doing. Read at Patterico’s post all about how this distortive technique, when it was applied to an Alberto Gonzalez memo by Mr. Isikoff, made the Bush Adminstration appear to be dismissive of detainee rights when no such thing was intended or implied.

Mr. Isikoff is also infamous for having been the primary author of a story from May of last year that had to be retracted — but not before people died over it:

Newsweek apologized yesterday for an inaccurate report on the treatment of detainees that triggered several days of rioting in Afghanistan and other countries in which at least 15 people died.

….. The report, in the issue dated May 9, said U.S. military investigators had found that American interrogators at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had flushed a copy of the Koran, the sacred Muslim text, down a toilet. A week later, when newspapers in Afghanistan and Pakistan picked up the item, it sparked anti-American demonstrations in the Afghan city of Jalalabad in which four protesters were killed and more than 60 injured. About a dozen more protesters were killed in the following days when the demonstrations spread across Afghanistan and to Pakistan and other countries.

….. The item was principally reported by Michael Isikoff, Newsweek’s veteran investigative reporter.

I had more to say on “Crappergate” at the time, which is here. What I have to say about the Isikoff stunt Patterico has just exposed can’t be printed.

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UPDATE: Allah at Hot Air has more on the tendencies of Isikoff, the guy Matt Drudge has no-so-politely nickanamd “Spikey.” More on Spikey’s background and his Plamegate shift are at this American Thinker link.