Outrage Fatigue

So I’ve been trying to get my head around this whole Newsweek thing, and I’m having a really hard time because I just don’t care. Am I really supposed to be outraged that our military interrogators are so insensitive that they allegedly flushed a holy book down the toilet, when I already know they’ve put people on leashes, smeared them with shit and menses, attached electrodes to their genitals, critically beat them, and a slew of other physical offenses that I find ever so much more objectionable than the desecration of a holy book? Am I really supposed to be outraged that a news magazine may have rushed something into print before it was fully confirmed, when I already know that our media is irrevocably fucked? Am I really supposed to be outraged that the administration has intimidated Newsweek into an apology, when I already know that Bush & Co. are the unchallenged masters of media manipulation and intimidation? Am I really supposed to be outraged at the hypocrisy of the White House scolding Newsweek for relying on anonymous sources, when I am all too painfully aware of the dodgy sources on which the administration relied to cull their cherry-picked evidence to make their case for war, after tens of thousands of American soldiers have now been killed or wounded? Am I really supposed to be outraged that Newsweek is being blamed for the uprising in Afghanistan, when I read about the defacement of the Qur’an as an interrogation tactic being used by US forces in an Arabic news story probably a year ago, thereby making it incredibly unlikely that this one report was the sole instigation of nearly a week of violent rioting?

What, exactly, am I supposed to get angry about here? The entire blogosphere is taking sides, the White House is going after Newsweek, Newsweek is on the run, everyone’s explaining “why this story is important,” but nothing I see is anything new; instead it is the culmination of bad foreign policy, an out-of-control military with a sanctioned and institutional pattern of abuse against detainees, a bullying White House with a pathological need to control information, and a national media that is a grotesque, disfigured shadow of its former self, which waved bye-bye to objectivity and responsible journalism long ago.

I just can’t get outraged about this story, because not one little shred of it surprises me. So forgive me if I can’t muster the requisite indignation go into a deep analysis of this whole idiotic debacle.

(That said, there are other people who are doing good analysis, so if you’re interested, here are my recommendations: Raw Story, Blogenlust, The Farmer at Corrente, Jesse at Pandagon, Keith Olbermann, Juan Cole, and The Moderate Voice has a comprehensive round-up here.)

[UPDATE: Check out Skippy, Lance, and Susan Hu's dKos diary, too. And by way of clarification...it's not that I don't give a shit at all; I just don't give a special shit about this story. It just seems like more of the same crap about which I rant every day, to less fanfare. I'm mad, but no more so than usual.]