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Sing it with us: Some people wait a lifetime / For a headline like this...

You just know the Post's crackhead hed writers were praying for a newsworthy combination of Shiites and toilets. No doubt the photo department had been sitting on this handy stock image for months.

But we digress! The real story (we think) is that Newsweek has issued a delicately-worded retraction:

Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek, said in an interview that the magazine was retracting the part of the article saying sources told Newsweek that a coming military report would say interrogators had flushed a holy book down the toilet to unnerve detainees. As it turned out, Newsweek now says, there was one source. And Mr. Whitaker said that because that source had "backed away" from his original account, the magazine could "no longer stand by" it.

So did Newsweek actually print an inaccuracy? Not necessarily. Actually, probably not at all — but, for the time being, 17 dead Afghans can't be wrong.

Newsweek Retracts Account of Koran Abuse by U.S. Military [NYT]