{"id":1969,"date":"2005-03-30T04:35:02","date_gmt":"2005-03-30T11:35:02","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2005-03-30T04:35:02","modified_gmt":"2005-03-30T11:35:02","slug":"an-apology-to-my-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2005\/03\/30\/an-apology-to-my-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"An Apology to My Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the process of writing the blog entry below<\/a> — mocking the stupidly false stories about me and others spouted by the denizens of David Horowitz’s Frontpage — I realized something that is really beginning to bother me: I’m guilty of exactly the same thing. <\/p>\n

My Monday column<\/a> featured a memo allegedly penned by U.S. ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Stephen Young that I found on the website of the Kabar News Agency. Now, as soon as I read this piece I realized fully that a great deal of it was probably the product of someone’s imaginative literary gifts: oh, I thought, too bad I can’t use it! With the clock ticking on my deadline, and a little voice inside my head telling me “Let them deny it!”, I decided that at least part of it was probably<\/i> true, and I made sure to cover my ass with an exculpatory paragraph at the very end, as well as a weasel-worded introduction to the material that gave several reasons why it could<\/i> be at least partially authentic. <\/p>\n

Part of the memo may well be real: but that isn’t good enough. <\/p>\n

That was a mistake, one that, in retrospect, I greatly regret. After all, where do I get off complaining about how the Frontpagers are making up quotes and libeling people without any credible evidence — and then think I can pull stunts like that? It’s not right. <\/p>\n

Without giving myself any excuses, I’ll just note that I’m currently recovering from a very mean bout with pneumonia. And none of this “well, it could<\/i> be true, in a “metaphorical” sense. That’s bs. The War Party is doing enough evil in this world: it isn’t necessary to make anything up. All that’s necessary is to tell the truth, and, in this instance, I failed my readers miserably. I have to note that both my editors, Eric Garris and Matt Barganier, objected, but I brushed their concerns aside with my typical brusqueness.<\/p>\n

My apologies, to one and all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the process of writing the blog entry below — mocking the stupidly false stories about me and others spouted by the denizens of David Horowitz’s Frontpage — I realized something that is really beginning to bother me: I’m guilty of exactly the same thing. My Monday column featured a memo allegedly penned by U.S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}