Today's Hot Topic: Bush Lied About Iraq - Duh!

by DemFromCT

For whatever reason, the American press seems to have discovered that old time religion, known as 'reporting the news'. After getting blasted by readers, the WaPo, LA Times and (to its credit, not for the first time) the NY Times are running with the Downing Street memo to the point that Editor and Publisher, the trade magazine, has taken notice.

For more than 10 days, the U.S. media nearly ignored it, but finally the so-called “Downing Street Memo” is finally gaining traction in the U.S. press. The Los Angeles Times featured a lengthy report on Thursday, and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post followed on Friday.
 
The memo, obtained by the The Sunday Times in London and published on May 1, became a major issue in the closing days of the British elections but received little attention in the United States until a Knight Ridder report on May 6, which E&P carried. A Knight Ridder editor later told E&P that it received surprisingly little pickup. The New York Times has given it little notice.
 
The Washington Post ignored the memo until Pincus’s article, which appeared Friday on page A18. It arrived five days after Post ombudsman Michael Getler revealed that readers had complained about the lack of coverage.

 Just who are those readers, I wonder? Between FAIR, Media Matters and the various political blogs, that would be a lot of letters to editors. I don't see this as a 'triumph' of the new media (the Internets) as much as another example of the synergy between the end user (we political junkies) and the content producers in old media. The circulation numbers in the old media are bad enough. How much more can the press ignore its most avid readers before catching on they're on the wrong side of the story?

Seems like that tipping point  has been reached (see the LA Times piece cited above... Indignation Grows in U.S. Over British Prewar Documents) and that's not good for Bush and the propaganda machine. As Krugman says (and as I wrote about in November):

  The people who sold us this war continue to insist that success is just around the corner, and that things would be fine if the media would just stop reporting bad news. But the administration has declared victory in Iraq at least four times. January's election, it seems, was yet another turning point that wasn't.

Yet it's very hard to discuss getting out. Even most of those who vehemently opposed the war say that we have to stay on in Iraq now that we're there.

In effect, America has been taken hostage. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the terrible scenes that will surely unfold if we leave (even though terrible scenes are unfolding while we're there). Nobody wants to tell the grieving parents of American soldiers that their children died in vain. And nobody wants to be accused, by an administration always ready to impugn other people's patriotism, of stabbing the troops in the back.

That's right out of the old Nixon-Agnew playbook. You'd think (of all people) at least the Washington Post would know better. But we all know that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and we also know it'll get worse before it gets better. Nonetheless, Iraq is a disaster without an end in sight, the anti-war faction of Democrats were right to be skeptical (and that includes Howard Dean) and, sooner or later, someone in the press besides Krugman is going to say so.

 

Comments

[RonK, Seattle]

CBS News, Bill Plante, CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug. 21, 2002: "I know there's this intense speculation, a churning, a frenzy ... but the subject didn't come up," Mr. Bush said.

[DaveW]

Here's hoping against hope that the Senate Dems make the connection between Bolton and the Iraq scandals. Nobody except the hopeless nutcases honestly believes that the Iraq invasion was anything more than a scam, a lie, a crime. Bush has been amazingly free from inquiry, much less criticism, in the MSM (or maybe not so amazing -- maybe it's simply not possible to get the media to pick up even the most obvious negative realities during a war).

Now, in an act of unbelievable arrogance and indifference, Bush has nominated a guy who manipulated and distorted intelligence reports for his own purposes. Instead of disavowing/denying the practice, by this nomination Bush is boldly endorsing it. The Bolton hearings should become the prime touchstone of a thorough airing of the whole Iraq invasion, based on the recent Brit revelations. The nomination controversy has received surprisingly prominent coverage. Bolton is a poster child for distorting the work of the intelligence agencies.

If the Dems have the motivation and the smarts to make it work, the hearings could mark a real seachange in public perceptions of the current administration. Bush has handed the opposition a grenade that could blow up in his political face. We need to pressure Dem committee members to make sure it does.

[DemFromCT]

DaveW, that would require the Democratic party to come to grips with the war.

it's not there yet.

[DaveW]

Well, I think piggybacking on the Bolton nomination would allow the Dems to question the morality and legality of intelligence distortion without quite coming out with the reality about Bush's selling of a phony war with phony intelligence. They can refer to the Brit scandals and ask Bolton whether he still thinks it's OK to distort or tailor agency reports to support a preexisting intention. And how would his answer apply if the Brit reports on Bush's manipultions are correct?

I really think this could become the root of a change in national perceptions. I think you dismiss its potential to easily.

[DemFromCT]

I think you dismiss its potential too easily.

Not its potential... I agree with you entirely. I'm suggesting that your strategy won't be eagerly embraced today by a party that is still of two minds on the war and how to handle it.

Me, I think we should come to grips... it's past time.

[Kagro X]

Sometimes self-help is the hardest kind to give. We can't come to grips with the war and admit our mistakes, and neither can the president. Perhaps we can do our part to cut a deal, and come to grips with the war and the president's mistakes for him. Lord knows he's already done his part to admit ours for us.

[NG]

Talking about the press, have people here seen this speech that Bill Moyer gave recently. Nice summary of the sorry condition of the news media in America today.

Moyers' entire speech is on the Free Press Web site:

An audio recording can be downloaded at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/moyers.mp3

Or you can watch the video at: www.freepress.net/conference/audio05/freepress-closing40515.mov

Transcript online (as soon as it's available) at www.freepress.net/conference.

[Diane]

It's a funny coincidence that all of a sudden when the media are starting to cover Bush's lies, nobody is talking about anything but Newsweek, isn't it?

[DemFromCT]

Well, Diane, the astute Dan Froomkin says the memo isn't a dud, it's a bomb with a long fuse. Newsweek bashing may buy them a day, but the memo's still there... and so's Iraq.

[Intellectually Curious]

I get frustrated by the apathy, lack of anger and frustration, and the lunacy of the "re-selection" of an administration that not only fails to hold anyone accountable, but actually promotes the worst of the worst. (Even if not 50%+1, there sure are a whole lot of Bush supporters.)

Sometimes that gets tempered by trying to sit on the other side -- I think it is difficult for people to imagine the USA doing all of the awful things that I certainly believe the neocons have managed to do in our name over 5 years. I would never want to believe that FDR bombed Pearl Harbor or looked the other way in order to put the USA in a position of power. Now, I don't think that, but I guess I'm trying to imagine what it is I am asking my Republican family to believe. I hope the truth comes out soon.