Michelle:

In this morning’s coverage of Koran abuse allegations at Gitmo, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Reuters, and Associated Press all mention in their lead paragraph that the Pentagon found no credible evidence that a guard flushed the Koran down a toilet. The Washington Post, on the other hand, does not bother to mention the Koran-flushing incident until its fourth paragraph and does not note until the thirteenth paragraph that the detainee who made that allegation has retracted it.

The Associated Press:

In Washington on Thursday, investigators confirmed five cases in which military personnel mishandled the Qurans of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. But they said they found no “credible evidence” that a holy book was flushed in a toilet.

Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, the Guantanamo Bay prison commander who led the investigation, said five of 15 alleged incidents were substantiated. Four were by guards and one was by an interrogator.

Hood said the five cases “could be broadly defined as mishandling” of the holy book. He refused to discuss details but said two of the cases apparently were accidental.

And I’m sure by “mishandling” it, they mean it wasn’t kept in a special plastic Qu’ran baggy.

“But oh, oh, oh!” I can hear Michelle saying now. “They only said it was ‘mishandled,’ not flushed down the toilet! Newsweek lied! Internment rocks!”

Again, I don’t really give a shit about what interrogators did to the Qu’ran, but would it kill Michelle to admit that the military has confirmed that an interrogator desecrated it to break detainees? Seriously, after all the pictures from Abu Ghraib, is Qu’ran desecration really that unimaginable?