Now if the New York Times would put one-tenth the time and resources into reporting the exposure of the Iraq lies as it did into reporting those same lies before, during and for a ridiculously long time after the Iraq invasion, we might actually get somewhere.
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June 12, 2005
Downing Street Memo II
Comments
“The editors on the national desk, it seems, are tacitly conceding (without actually admitting) that they blew the call the first time around.”
Or perhaps the editors read poll numbers and now that they see real reporting is safe, are seeing if they can run fast enough to get in front of the parade and then claim credit for how bold and brave they are. That is the Plan B for democracy.
After Plan A – Competence in High State Office and in the media – fails and the feedback from incompetence builds up until all the public can see for themselves it was all bullshit inspite of media shilling, the hacks can safely switch sides without risking anything. Plan B. Sure, Plan B means a few ten thousand lives were lost that didn’t have to be, as well as a decrease in security from terrorism around the world, and America is weaker, but the guys do have a living to make.
Still a little early for the New York Times to go with real reporting. It will want to be sure the tide has turned before it switches sides. Right now those White House Planted Propaganda sources are still valuable – hear about those bad Syrians this weekend? Anymous source says, they are bad. Next, Bush threatens them. Nah, still not safe for the NYT to switch sides and stop giving those anon blow jobs to Unnamed Officials.
Posted by: razor | Jun 12 2005 6:55 utc | 1
Frank Rich: Don’t Follow the Money
The attacks continue to be so successful that even now, long after many news organizations, including The Times, have been found guilty of failing to puncture the administration’s prewar W.M.D. hype, new details on that same story are still being ignored or left uninvestigated. The July 2002 “Downing Street memo,” the minutes of a meeting in which Tony Blair and his advisers learned of a White House effort to fix “the intelligence and facts” to justify the war in Iraq, was published by The London Sunday Times on May 1. Yet in the 19 daily Scott McClellan briefings that followed, the memo was the subject of only 2 out of the approximately 940 questions asked by the White House press corps, according to Eric Boehlert of Salon.
This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon’s special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn’t run pro-Nixon stories. Watergate tapes and memos make Mr. Colson, who boasted of “destroying the old establishment,” sound like the founding father of today’s blogging lynch mobs. He exulted in bullying CBS to cut back its Watergate reports before the ’72 election. He enlisted NBC in pro-administration propaganda by browbeating it to repackage 10-day-old coverage of Tricia Nixon’s wedding as a prime-time special. It was the Colson office as well that compiled a White House enemies list that included journalists who had the audacity to question administration policies.
Such is the equivalently supine state of much of the news media today that Mr. Colson was repeatedly trotted out, without irony, to pass moral judgment on Mr. Felt – and not just on Fox News, the cable channel that is actually run by the former Nixon media maven, Roger Ailes. “I want kids to look up to heroes,” Mr. Colson said, oh so sorrowfully, on NBC’s “Today” show, condemning Mr. Felt for dishonoring “the confidence of the president of the United States.” Never mind that Mr. Colson dishonored the law, proposed bombing the Brookings Institution and went to prison for his role in the break-in to steal the psychiatric records of The Times’s Deep Throat on Vietnam, Daniel Ellsberg. The “Today” host, Matt Lauer, didn’t mention any of this – or even that his guest had done jail time. None of the other TV anchors who interviewed Mr. Colson – and he was ubiquitous – ever specified his criminal actions in the Nixon years. Some identified him onscreen only as a “former White House counsel.”
…
THE journalists who do note the resonances of now with then rarely get to connect those dots on the news media’s center stage of television. You are more likely to hear instead of how Watergate inspired too much “gotcha” journalism. That’s a rather absurd premise given that no “gotcha” journalist got the goods on the biggest story of our time: the false intimations of incipient mushroom clouds peddled by American officials to sell a war that now threatens to match the unpopularity and marathon length of Vietnam.
At first read the WaPo story does seem like a Clinton bill, just enough to keep the left of yer back but not enough to actually achieve anything.
I am more than happy to be wrong about this and given MSM’s penchant for turning seeming inconsequentials into major issues, perhaps a front page story like this in WaPo will be the article that turned the tide.
Who knows whether they read tea leaves, ‘talk to the other side’ or just make it up as they go along. They sure don’t.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jun 12 2005 7:44 utc | 4
The compete Downing Street Memo II has much more to say than what the Washington Post is making of it.
The Conditions Necessary for Military Action
10. Aside from the existence of a viable military plan we consider the following conditions necessary for military action and UK participation: justification/legal base; an international coalition; a quiescent Israel/Palestine; a positive risk/benefit assessment; and the preparation of domestic opinion.
Justification
11. US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law. But regime change could result from action that is otherwise lawful. We would regard the use of force against Iraq, or any other state, as lawful if exercised in the right of individual or collective self-defence, if carried out to avert an overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe, or authorised by the UN Security Council.
Those sentences should be on Page 1. Pincus doesn´t mention them and the Post does not even reproduce this memo.
Timesonline: The leak that changed minds on the Iraq war
But as Geoff Hoon, then British defence secretary, said in that Downing Street meeting in July 2002, the “US had already begun ‘spikes of activity’ to put pressure on the regime”.
No bombs were dropped on southern Iraq in March 2002 but by July, with the “spikes of activity” in full flow, about 10 tons of bombs were being dropped a month. The problem was that the Iraqis didn’t retaliate. They didn’t provide the excuse Bush and Blair needed.
So at the end of August the allies started the air war anyway. The number of bombs dropped on southern Iraq shot up to 54.6 tons in September alone.
The authenticity of these figures is not in doubt. They were obtained from the government by parliamentary questions put by the Liberal Democrats so they are up on the Hansard website for all the internet bloggers to see.
They show that Bush and Blair began their war, not in March 2003 as most believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Bush received his congressional backing, and more than two months before the UN vote.
Bold mine.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 12 2005 9:06 utc | 6
Eric Margolis from the TorontoStar: Web of cold-blooded lies
British and U.S. intelligence agencies were ordered to produce “evidence” to justify a war. In the U.S., faked “evidence” and grotesque lies were fed to the frightened public by pro-war neo-conservatives and frenzied national media. The U.S. Congress clapped for war like trained seals.
In October 2002, Bush actually claimed in a national speech that Iraqi “drone” aircraft were poised to shower germs and poison gas on America. Vice-President Dick Cheney insisted this absurd allegation was the “smoking gun” that justified invading Iraq. Blair ordered his cabinet to support the invasion.
Bush, in his subsequent State of the Union speech, warned that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger to build nuclear weapons aimed at the U.S. This ludicrous claim was based on a forged document. The forgery was back-channelled to the Pentagon through neo-fascists in Italian military intelligence.
And so it went. Lie after lie. Scare upon scare. Fakery after fakery, trumpeted by the tame media that came to resemble the lickspittle press of the old Soviet Union. Ironically, in the end, horrid Saddam Hussein turned out to be telling the truth all along, while Bush and Blair were not.
Posted by: Fran | Jun 12 2005 14:32 utc | 8
it cannot be said otherwise. journalists in countries like america britain & australia have proved themseles to be little more than – dolled up wage slaves
when like friedman & his confrêres hide behind their sanctimonious self regard – it is simply too much to carry
te media as a whole have proved themselves the tyrants willing executioners, propogandists & brothers in crime
they are as guilty as sin – beyond any reasonable doubt
it is for them to prove otherwise
i do not see that happening any time soon
they lack decency, they lack honour – most of all they lack or hide from the facts
they are scribblers sending out signals of their surrender
they are slaves who uise all the rhtoric in the world to hide their chains – that are now covered with the blood & shit of everybody but themselves
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 12 2005 14:41 utc | 9
I don’t know whether it’s Bill Keller, the traditional arrogance of The New York Timesm or other factors, but that paper’s news coverage continues to be pretty absymal. Both the Times and the Post were terrible in their pre-war coverage, but the Post has atoned for it somewhat: Shadid, Pincus, Priest, Gelman, Milbank. From the Times, little redeeming coverage at all.
It’s interesting in part because the Post’s editorial opinion and columnists on foreign party are so deferential to the neocon vision. I wonder if Abe Rosenthal’s editorial reign and newsroom hiring decisions may have given more of a neocon tint to the Times foreign policy coverage than in the case of the Post.
Posted by: Ben Brackley | Jun 12 2005 17:36 utc | 10
It’s interesting in part because the Post’s editorial opinion and columnists on foreign party are so deferential to the neocon vision.
I used to say that if you put the NYT’s editorial page together with the Washington Post’s national desk, you’d have a halfway good newspaper.
But then the Times went and gave columns to Brooks and Tierney. So now I guess you’d have a quarter way decent paper.
Posted by: Billlmon | Jun 12 2005 17:57 utc | 11
The op-ed page on the NYT is edited by Abe Rosenthal’s son.
Posted by: alabama | Jun 12 2005 18:05 utc | 12
It truly does look like it’s more than what the WaPo had to say.
Evidence?
Here’s the lead from Michael Smith’s other piece in today’s Times (not Pravda):
“MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action….”
Thank for covering the Downing Street Memo, Billmon. It has been amazing to watch the corporate media drag its feet on coverage of the war. I think you’re right that wounded editorial pride at the senior level has been the prime inhibitor of coverage so far–they’ve decided that it is “old news,” and they are too stubborn to admit they’re wrong (I posted on the NY Times situation here) .
But if new events give them an excuse to cover the memo without admitting their mistakes, I don’t mind. These new leaked documents provide them an opportunity for a fresh start. And Conyers’ hearings on Thursday, replete with the spectacle of the delivery of his letter to President Bush, will hopefully be another “new story” worth covering.
I’ve found, though, a disturbing lack of interest among some of the top liberal bloggers to cover this story with the attention it deserves. I imagine that it is because they are pessimistic about its chances to make a difference. And they, like the senior editors, don’t want to admit that they might have been wrong about this one.
Your recent coverage of the memo should be a shining example to all other top liberal bloggers out there. You’ve expressed some doubts and pessimism, but you’ve given the Memo prominent coverage and have provided encouragement to all of the smaller blogs demanding that this story be covered.
I hope that others will follow suit.
Posted by: Matt | Jun 12 2005 20:18 utc | 14
@R’Giap (10:41am)
Journalists in Britain have to operate within the law. They do not deserve your blanket condemnation.
And be grateful for the spirit of the French people. That “constitution” would have put all of Europe’s journalists in the same boat.
@RossK (2:05pm)
This is going to happen every time America goes to war. The person that runs the UK has decided to integrate British and American military equipment. A good example is the air-tanker designed to refuel US fighter/bombers.
Posted by: John | Jun 12 2005 21:01 utc | 15
I think Obama is a major sell-out; much like my Democratic senator, Ken Salazar.
Despite his anti-war positions as a candidate in 2004, Obama’s second vote as a U.S. Senator was in support of confirming Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State. He also voted to confirm John Negroponte as Director of National Intelligence, despite Negroponte’s involvement in Iran-Contra and other situations that clearly raise questions about his ethics and discretion. Obama also voted for a bill to limit citizens rights to seek legal redress against abusive corporations. During the bankruptcy debate, he helped vote down a Democratic amendment to cap the abusive interest rates credit card companies could charge. And now, Obama cast a key procedural vote in support of President Bush’s right-wing judges.
Posted by: susan | Jun 12 2005 21:04 utc | 16
@ RGiap I’d be (slightly) more charitable
to journalists outside the U.S. where there are some
notably courageous and competent exceptions, but as far as American journalists are concerned U.S. it seems that calling the “dolled-up wage slaves” is an insult to all those who sweat to make an honest living, dolled-up or not.
(I know that you didn’t intend any such insult, but it
gives me a small pleasure to differ with you “from the
left”.)
Billmon speaks favorably of Walter Pincus whose
technical competence I have no reason to doubt. His
objectivity in matters relating to the CIA (like the
case at hand) is open to
some question
Connections between Walter Pincus and the intelligence sector are long-standing and well-known. From 1955 to 1957, he worked for US Army Counter-Intelligence in Washington, D.C. Pincus himself is a useful source about his first connections with the CIA. In 1968, when the stories about the CIA’s penetration of the National Student Association had been broken by the radical magazine Ramparts, Pincus wrote a rather solemn expose of himself in the Washington Post. In a confessional style, he reported how the Agency had sponsored three trips for him, starting in 1960. He had gone to conferences in Vienna, Accra and New Delhi, acting as a CIA observer. It was clearly an apprenticeship in which as he well knew Pincus was being assessed as officer material. He evidently made a good impression, because the CIA asked him to do additional work. Pincus says he declined, though it would be hard to discern from his reporting that he was not, at the least, an Agency asset. The Washington Times describes Pincus as a person “who some in the Agency refer to as ‘the CIA’s house reporter.'”
One would like to hope that the long awaited “night-of-the-elite-long-knives” has finally arrived,
that is, that the criminal fiasco in Iraq and Bush dynastic overreaching have reached such proportions as to prod “the establishment” to “correct” the already dubious results of the 2004 election. If so, this
signifies a decisive shift of balance in favor of those
elements that have opposed this adventure from the start.
By the way, when I write “the establishment” I include
those classes represented by contributors to MOA, i.e., us.
Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jun 13 2005 7:44 utc | 18