Harper's Eats Crow

In one of the more shameful journalistic foibles of recent months (and it's such a long list!) Harper's ran a photo of everyday good, loyal, patriotic Marine recruits on the cover of its magazine, illustrating a story on deserters. The recruits didn't like that much.

Rule of thumb: Don't tick off someone who has a gun.

Harper's is going to run a correction (here). Says the spokesperson:

``We're going to print a clarification in our next issue,'' said Giulia Melucci, a vice president at New York-based Harper's. ``We feel it needs to be clarified that these are respectable soldiers defending our country honorably. We regret any confusion it may have caused.''

She might have added, "We also regret that we're a bunch of biased, anti-American idiots."