Everyone's heard about the Newsweek story with the Quran in the toilet, right? The blogosphere is all aflutter over this crap. All the top-tier bloggers are jumping on this with both feet. Powerline, Malkin, Sullivan, Kos, Captain's Quarters, Vodkapundit, LaShawn, lgf, Talking Points… they're on Newsweek like starving wolves falling on a t-bone steak.

Here's my two cents.

I frankly do not care if the story is accurate or not. I agree that journalists must tirelessly strive for perfect accuracy. But I strongly disagree with the current trend among those in power to blame journalists anytime an unsavory story is reported. Am I the only one to notice this? The White House's damage control policy is becoming a two step process. Step 1: discredit report. Step 2: repeat step 1 as needed.

Here's a simple, fundamental fact. I don't know anything about anything.

I have never been to Washington D.C. Therefore, I cannot confirm that Washington D.C. exists. I've never seen George W. Bush. How can I know that Bush exists as a real flesh-and-blood human? I've only seen him on television. I'm fairly certain my TV is real, but that's about it.

I assume that Washington D.C. and George W. Bush and the Seattle Seahawks and the Grand Canyon all exist because that's what everyone tells me. When a significant majority of people agree on something, we call that something "fact." That doesn't make it factual, but that's the way things work. Five hundred years ago, it was a fact that the sun revolved around the earth. It wasn't true. It didn't matter.

With this Newsweek problem (have people started calling is Quran-gate yet?) we have two different groups of people proclaiming contradictory facts. I can't prove their facts, so their facts don't really matter to me.

What matters to me is truth.

When I heard about this Newsweek headline my first thought was "Damn, again? Haven't they learned anything?" It never occurred to me that the story might be based on inaccuracies, because the story is so damn believable.

The U.S. government has been keeping citizens and legal residents in prison for years without basic constitutional rights. Is it any surprise that we might be treating hostile foreigners even worse? Interrogation isn't supposed to be pleasant, but we've gone way beyond filling a guy with coffee and not letting him visit the washroom.

With the horror stories that have been trickling, and sometimes flooding, out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo for the last few years, Newsweek's Quran story is completely plausible.

The real problem has nothing to do with Newsweek's accuracy. The real problem is that I believe my government capable of doing everything Newsweek says, and worse.