Ah, winning those hearts and minds, those Pentagon PR flacks are.
Look, this meta-issue has little to do with who did what with which Koran at this point. It's about the administration doing their best to pretend that all their problems are the result of the stab-in-the-back media. To some extent, they may be right - 5 minutes watching Fox News or spent perusing the leading lights of the conservative wingnutosphere is probably enough to cause riots in just about any part of the world.
None of this is about appeasing violence, it's all for domestic consumption like just about everything else they do. You think DiRita knows one thing about making Arabs/Muslims feel warm fuzzies? Or that he cares? It isn't his job. Bamboozling the press and the rest of us is his job.
...oh, and for the record, Somerby is right - Isikoff is a hack who has always been good at making certain details seem more important, and more verified, than they really are. I certainly won't ever defend his reporting, and I find it hilarious that the residents of Wingnuttia are directing their ire not at Isikoff, who is after all one of their own, but at Newsweek's editors. But, the instant this story hit the meta-story became far more important than anything Isikoff actually wrote. I'm not really sure how many liberals are defending Isikoff, but one shouldn't confuse focusing on the big picture with a need to defend him whether his journalistic sin was minor or grave.
