Downing Street - Dud Or Long Fuse?

by DemFromCT

With the publication today of additional stories in the WaPo and NY Times today on the Downing Street Memo and its antecedents and blow-back, one wonders if Dan Froomkin was right a few days back when he said this is less of a dud than a story with a long fuse.

In the end, it had to be more than a dud. First of all, given older polling about the American electorate's appalling lack of information about the war (Iraq being falsely associated with 9/11, assuming WMD were found, etc.), the need for repetitive dissemination of fact is glaringly obvious. And even reviewing recent polling suggests this is an impoertant issue to many Americans. May's NBC/Wall Street Journal Poll, for example, shows a majority of Americans unhappy with Bush's handling of the war, prospects for victory, and whether the war was worth it.

One can't assume, as our editors and publishers apparently have, that 'everyone knows' this story, because partisanship is so high that cognitive dissonance prevents half the country from absorbing what they don't see and don't hear regularly. While from October, the findings of the PIPA poll are chillingly relevent:

Bush Supporters Still Believe Iraq Had WMD or Major Program, Supported al Qaeda

Agree with Kerry Supporters  Bush Administration Still Saying This Is The Case

Agree US Should Not Have Gone to War if No WMD or Support for al Qaeda

 Add that to the deliberate editorial suppression of visual evidence from the war in terms of the death of soldiers and civilians, let alone subtle discrimination against that which doesn't fit editorial policy and you have a press that has a lot of catching up to do. In fact, it's hard to see how they can NOT run with this story.

Comments

[DemFromCT]

it's clear the news from iraq is bad this week... Condi's hurried trip, etc. shows that the non-government in Iraq is bringing them closer to civil war.

I was watching Tom Friedman on Chris Matthews today. He and Joe Klein aren't anywhere where they need to be yet. As weather vanes, that tells us about segments of the population ("liberals' who really aren't and technocrats) and where their heads are at.

[DHinMI]

For weathervanes, I've been looking for retired generals. I don't know if the press isn't calling on them, or if they've just been quiet, but I haven't heard much from the likes of Zinni, McCaffery and others who were outspoken during the lead-up and the "hot" part of the war in Iraq. I'm waiting for some of those guys to start talking about recognizing that the occupation in Iraq has failed, and either something radically different needs to be pursued, or we need to get out. I'm sure some of these guys are thinking it, now I wonder how long it will take for them to get attention for saying it.

[DemFromCT]

btw, the Times (UK) is covering this:

SENIOR American congressmen are considering sending a delegation to London to investigate Britain’s role in preparations for the war in Iraq.

Democratic opponents of President George W Bush have seized on a leaked Downing Street memo, first published three weeks ago by The Sunday Times, as evidence that American lawmakers were misled about Bush’s intentions in Iraq.

A group of 89 Democrats from the House of Representatives has written to Bush to ask whether the memo is accurate.

It recounts a discussion between Tony Blair and his military and intelligence advisers about the Bush administration’s views in July 2002, three months before Congress authorised the White House to go to war with Iraq.

The Democrat letter, drafted by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, said that the memo raised “troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration”.

[DemFromCT]

more from the Times:

“I deplore the fact that our media have been so reticent on the question of whether there was a secret planning of a war for which neither the Congress nor the American people had given permission,” Conyers said.

“We have The Sunday Times to thank for this very important activity. It reminds me of Watergate, which started off as a tiny little incident reported in The Washington Post. I think that the interest of many citizens is picking up.”

Another Democrat who signed the letter said that the affair could have repercussions on mid-term elections next year. “People are beginning to understand that those crying in the wilderness (opposing the war in Iraq) were not without rationale,” said Congressman Danny Davis of Illinois.

“If we had a plan which people believed was going to take us out (of Iraq) they would feel much better. But the fact is there has not been a real strategy to get us out.”

maybe the Dems quoted here are right... this is going to take more time to seep in (the point of my story) but seep in it will... if the American press does its job this time.

[DHinMI]

if the American press does its job this time.

Here's their chance for penance. Instead of mea culpas six months or a year from now about how they failed to get the story right, I want the NYT and WaPo and the rest of them on this now when it might actually make a bit of a difference.

[Rob C]

Minutes!!! Downing Street Minutes. Memos are trivia, minutes mean something. Use minutes and maybe the msm will eventually catch on.

[censored]

The truth is that they are minutes. The "reality based community" is buying into bushspeak when they minimize the importance of the minutes by calling them "memo" Leave that to McCain and McClellan, and George himself.

The only explanation I can find for the American fondness for this word, is that after a year of looking at Bybee's "memorandum" (which Ted Kennedy, during the Gonzales hearings kept calling the "Bybee Ammendment" they connect the dirty truth with "memo"

In Kennedy's case he was exagerrating the importance of Bybee, and in the public's case they are minimizing the importance of the Downing Street Minutes. It would take a psychoanalyst to figure this one out. Are American people that stupid? Or are they that illiterate? Are they blind on purpose? Is their guilt killing their perception?

Makes me wonder if Kennedy was not so doddering after all! Up with Ted! Down with Bushspeak!!