Newsweek's explosive allegation was no "honest mistake."

That, according to OpinionJournal.com, the free Web auxiliary to The Wall Street Journal. And what is really going on? Vietnam, that's what. If unimaginative generals and admirals can fight yesterday's war, then so can reporters and editors.

Trouble is, they're losing readers and viewers. In this, they remind me of the fictitious Charles Foster Kane (as in Citizen), who continued to use his newspapers for his own unhinged ends while he also continued to lose readers, credibility, and ultimately the only friends he had. Like Kane, Michael Isikoff and company at Newsweek were and are trying to prove something--in this case that the American military is an instrument of totalitarian terror. Nor are they the only ones. And they haven't gotten through their thick, paranoiac heads that they are no longer alone, and hence risk exposure with every crazy story they make up.