Wednesday, June 30, 2004

NEWSTWEAK Doesn't Regret That Its Reporter Is A Lying Sack

Craig Unger delivers a fatal blow to Spikey Isikoff, the son Lucianne Goldberg never had. Unger writes:

Michael Isikoff attacks Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" by asserting that "Craig Unger appears, claiming that bin Laden family members were never interviewed by the FBI." The article then goes on to say that this assertion is false. Unfortunately for Isikoff, I make no such statement in the movie....

It would be one thing if Isikoff had simply made an honest error, but clearly that is not the case. When Isikoff called me for his article, I specifically told him that the evacuation process involved brief interviews of the bin Ladens which fell far short of the kind of intense criminal investigation that should have gotten underway after the murder of nearly 3,000 people. The worst crime in American history had just taken place two days earlier, and the FBI did not even bother to check the terror watch lists! Isikoff omitted all that. Instead, he attributes claims to me that are simply not in the movie.

And Newstweak offers this simpering response:

NEWSWEEK regrets that we did not include Michael Moore's reference to "little interviews" in our report.

NEWSTWEAK doesn't regret that Spikey made up a quote and attributed it to Unger.

NEWSTWEAK: Good Enough When The Truth Doesn't Matter.