Liberal Media Explains Its Own Curiosity At Its Lack Of Curiosity About "Wing Nut" Issue, Which It Finds Strangely Compelling, Authentic, And Intriguing, While Completely Ignoring It
This is just amazing:
Yesterday's East Room meeting of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair was worth a cool $1,000 to Steve Holland, Reuters' chief White House correspondent, if he cares to collect it.
Earlier in the day, Democrats.com, a group of left-wing activists, sent out an e-mail offering a "reward" to anyone who could get an answer from Bush about whether a recently leaked British government memo from 2002 was correct in saying the Bush administration had "fixed" the intelligence about Iraq's weapons to justify war.
The issue caused quite a fuss in Britain when the Times of London published the memo last month on the eve of Blair's reelection. Here at home, the memo provoked outrage from liberals but did not become a major news event -- until yesterday, when Holland, the third of four questioners, put it on the agenda.
Yeah, that’s right. The memo did not become a major news event here in America, the home of the First Amendment, until a reporter from Reuters bothered to bring it up.
"The so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action," Holland mused to both leaders. "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?"
Bush started out by suggesting that the memo wasn't credible because British media had "dropped it out in the middle of his [Blair's] race..."
Amazing, isn’t it? The memo has no credibility here, in America, because the timing of its release in England, might suggest some political motivation!
Well, it wasn’t dropped in the middle of Bush’s race. And it deals with Bush. And it’s been known in America for six long weeks. Nowhere near an American election. How on earth would it lack credibility here???
Holland, a consummate professional, wasn't trying to satisfy the wing nuts -- "good grief," he said when told later about the prize money -- and won't be collecting. But his query ended a slightly strange episode in the American media in which the potentially explosive report out of London had become a seldom acknowledged elephant in the room.
Even more amazing. Here’s a big time reporter for the Washington Post, a newspaper which declined for six weeks to ask the Preznit or the White House in general about the Downing Street memo—the authenticity of which has not been seriously questioned—and Dana Milbank characterizes a completely pertinent question, a question which he acknowledges has been strangely ignored by the American media, a question which he admits is the goddam “elephant in the room” as “satisfying the wing nuts”!!!
Good God! This is where we are in America—the “liberal” media ignores a story it admits is worthy of the front page, but anyone who addresses it is pandering to the “wing nuts”!
Milbank doesn't think there's anything disturbingly wrong with the American media that a bunch of "wing nuts" have to offer a thousand dollar reward to any journalist to ask a question that the media recognizes is "potentially explosive"???
In the midst of the media's self congratulatory orgy of the thirty year old Watergate story, Milbank doesn't think there's anything deeply disturbing that no American journalists took those "wing nuts" up on their thousand dollar offer???
Not even just for the money???
Fucking amazing. Again, Joe Heller couldn’t have made it up.
The Times report was intriguing: It showed that the head of British foreign intelligence told Blair seven months before the invasion of Iraq that Bush saw military action against Saddam Hussein as "inevitable" and that intelligence in Washington was "being fixed around the policy." In part, the memo never gained traction here because, unlike in Britain, it wasn't election season, and the war is not as unpopular here. In part, it's also because the notion that Bush was intent on military action in Iraq had been widely reported here before, in accounts from Paul O'Neill and Bob Woodward, among others.
The war is not as unpopular here? Right. Fifty two percent of Americans think it’s a waste of blood and money. Fifty eight percent disapprove of Bush's handling of it.
And the memo never gained traction here because it isn’t election season here in America??? So, the memo wasn't credible in England because it was election season, and it's not important here in America because it isn't election season?
Can this memo ever catch a break?
How about the notion that this memo is old news because it was widely reported that Bush was intent on military action? Well, yeah, it was widely reported. But such reporting was widely dismissed because it could never be proven, despite an assload of evidence.
Well, here’s your fucking smoking gun. In the form of a mushroom cloud.
The memo was also more newsworthy across the Atlantic because it reinforced the notion there that Blair has been acting as Bush's "poodle."
No, it was not more newsworthy because the English saw it as evidence that Blair is Bush’s “poodle”. It was more newsworthy in England because the English media acknowledged that it existed.
It was less newsworthy here, in America, the home of the First Amendment, because newspapers and magazines, and television stations decided, without asking Americans, that it was not newsworthy.
It was less newsworthy here in America, because the Washington Post was way too busy covering Bob Woodward, who hasn’t done any investigative journalism in three decades, breaking his arm patting himself on the back for breaking a story thirty years ago, to devote the front page, or any pages to the Downing Street Memo.
But, you know, that’s not Bob Woodward’s fault. I mean, he’s only the managing editor of the Washington Post.
It’s not like he has any say about what’s newsworthy or not.
How do Republicans stand this liberal media!
I thought you might be interested in downingstreetmemo.com , afterdowningstreet.org and joining the Big Brass Alliance.
Great post, BTW!
-Kevin (happyjack270@yahoo.com)
Posted by: Kevin Baas | June 11, 2005 at 12:14 AM