Of all the ways that Opera could have dealt with it, I'm actually so pleased at what they've ended up doing, that I might wet myself. So what they've done is this - they've made it into a little joke - Oops!, as Haavard put it. That, and they've dealt with it in the same breath as pointing out people who have very definitely (and not in English) said that Opera is the best. A "proper" release/retraction will come out some vague time in a future because this is no big deal.
And instead of putting a "retraction" on the main page, they tucked it away as a blog post from Haavard, and they've put it (solidly below the fold, and below the posting about Chip) on the MyOpera Community Page - so that other than people who gave a crap (ie Opera and FireVole Fanboys) - no one has to know. Superb - a retraction that's been turned into a solid win. Laughing it off and making partisan hacks look like partisan hacks. You couldn't have asked for a better outcome.
(Unless you were dead set on making Opera look bad, for some reason that had less to do with facts, and more to do with mudslinging)
Edit: It's more of a win that I'd have thought - CNET's boggled about it, in a way that sends people straight to Oops! and leaves Asa with a bloody nose. I'd compare him to Howard Dean, but then I actually *like* Howard Dean. I'm tempted to change my headline to "Asa Dotzler the best thing to ever happen to Opera" - but then I'm not the National Review.
Oh, further cleverness - now that Opera have "issued a statement", they've felt empowered to just go back and "fix" the old one, so that they've left virtually no trace of the gaffe on the main page. Such genius.
"Me too, but at the end of a prize-fight, you look at the guy who's dancing around, and that's who won." Red Haven's on Fire.
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