Newsweek may be a victim of White House pressure, not shoddy reporting

I'm not one for elaborate conspiracies, bureaucracy tends not to lend itself to that level of organization, but sometimes simple conspiracies can eloquently illuminate a rather dubious-looking official story. Such is the case with the recent Newsweek blow-up. Does it really seem likely that Michael Isikoff, one of the most respected journalists in the country, really ran with a single, anonymous sourced story of this magnitude? Does it strike you as at all coincidental that The International Committee of the Red Cross has been documenting Koran abuse at Quantanimo for the last three years, but when the story hit the mainstream press, all it took was the President expressing his outrage with the messenger, while discounting the validity of the message, to get Newsweek to retract the thing?

I submit for your consideration the following senario. The Newsweek story hits. There is no immediate reaction from the White House. When riots flare up in Afghanistan as a result of the story, suddenly the White House is morally outraged by the wreckless disregard for the facts and human life displayed by Newsweek. This just as Afghan President Harmid Karzai is about to visit the States and call the Administration to task for a detailed report on widespread torture and murder by US soldiers in his nation. Someone at the White House, Karl Rove perhaps, gets the managing editor of Newsweek on the phone. "If you don't retract that story and throw Isikoff to the wolves, Newsweek will never get access to a member of this administration again!" Suddenly, Newsweek apologizes. They call the White House. "There, we have apologized for running the story." "Not good enough, I said retract it." The next day, Newsweek retracts the story. Is this possible? Sure. Did this happen? I have no idea, but it makes a little more sense then what is being floated as the actual chain of events and its certainly consistent with the thuggish abuses of power we have come to expect from the Bushies.