The Sunday Times: Washington confronts 'memogate' (Downing Street)

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1647332,00.html

The Sunday Times

Washington confronts 'memogate'
By Tony Allen-Mills, Washington correspondent of The Sunday Times, for Times Online


President George W. Bush has finally responded to a question that much of America has been asking: did a secret memo prove that Washington was gearing for war in Iraq months earlier than the White House has admitted?

The Downing Street memo on US preparations for war in Iraq was revealed in The Sunday Times five weeks ago. But it wasn't until Tony Blair's visit to the White House this week that the resulting controversy made waves in Washington, and revived a long-dormant American debate about President Bush’s march to war from the summer of 2002.

It has also provoked embarrassed questions in the US media as to why so many newspapers and broadcast outlets here ignored the story for so long.

.....


Yet now the controversy is out in the open and there is no further doubting of the memo’s authenticity, or excuse for media foot-dragging. The original Sunday Times report was widely quoted in leading newspapers this week. A Democratic senator entered the memo into the record of a meeting of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.


<</SNIP>>

[sabra]

1. This one isn't going away, any time soon!

The cat is now out of the bag.....

[Triana]

2. They have YET to confront the Minutes....

...and frankly, I think they not only need to be forced to confront them, but also the videos and other documents posted here on DU, as well as John Bolton's role in getting a Brazilian man fired because he wanted chemical weapons inspections in Iraq that might have threatened Junior's (albiet fake) "justification" for going to war.

I think the media and the American public, particularly those who lost family members in Iraq, needs to not only force them to confront the whole debacle, to show them where the bu$hit in the national and international buckwheat, but we also need to rub their noses in it. In fact, we need to bury them in it.

[sabra]

3. Hopefully the Conyers letter will lead to that

I am hopefull...

[Tigress DEM]

13. As a legal manuver....

In a situation where you have someone who you have reason to believe will not respond to standard methods of service, there is the "publication" method.

For instance if you want a divorce from a spouse that has disappeared you run a notice out in a paper where their last known address was to give them the opportunity to respond if at all possible.

Considering that the pResident already refused a subpoena to the Ohio Fraud party, this letter of Conyers serves the same purpose. By NOT responding he gives the House of Reps a clear message the he does not have the answers that can save his butt.

Therefore as citizen outrage grows over the non-response, we should document our discontent in OP EX pages all over the nation or wherever it gets noticed, then they should have shown enough responsibility to notify Bush that he's being given a chance to justify his actions publicly.

So it is my hope that this publication method approach is a prelim to the Impeachment Party that will be a mandate, not a request, of the House of Reps and the citizens of the USofA.

[merwin]

7. Their response was a complete DODGE of the question

[Tigress DEM]

11. Keeping their feet to the flames, in fact, turn up the heat!!!

The good news is that the MSM is hearing us.

CNN co founder Reese Schoenfeld was probably the rethugs last blatant attempt at control. May 16 he said (on "The Big Show" with John Gibson? Gibbons?) that it was the media's responsibility to "lie" for the government during times of war.

About a week or so later, Ted Turner announces that CNN is going to put some of it's International Content on US CNN. I'm sure he's just looking at a market share that's slipping over to CSpan and public run cable access and the internet for REAL news, but I don't care WHY they pay attention to US, just that they do.

I was at a Media Fair and the MN STRIB had their Reader Rep Kate Parry there. She is in her position because of the influx of "bias" in the media allegations from both sides of the fence.

Interestingly enough the OP EX from Sunday May 29 ran a huge editorial by Bill Moyers, "Punished for the thruth" and a smaller piece by a rethug pawn, Laurence D Cohen. "Let PBS and NPR run riot, minus our taxes." He is calling for the "death" of public broadcasting because he detects a "Pro Arab" and "Anti Republican" bias on Namby Pamby Radio. puuuleeese.

Also in this same OP EX section is a call to close down Guantanamo "Gitmo doing more harm than good" by Thomas L Friedman. It may be a NY Times grab to fill space, but it was a good choice.

Also in that same OP EX section is a piece supporting the alternative fuel, Ehtanol. WOW. Can you say power to the people?

Media fair reps for the public broadcasting groups and the public access groups were there to say there is a move afoot to pull them off the air, because they are really the only peices of the media that belong to the people. Got that?

So what we can do is watch for those innocuous announcements of a "Public Meeting" that references any cable or telecom or media changes that the public can voice their opinion about.

If cable is going to win in this analog to digital conversion, then they have already aligned themselves somewhat with public broadcasting here in the Twin Cities at least, by working to provide digital channels for our public channels here. Every other entity that wants a piece of our media pie should too.

With the possibility of losing more and more government funding and with a new overlord, public owned media and public access in general is at risk. Like the internet and pod casting, there is a chance for ordinary people to grab some air time, attract a crowd and get the truth out to the public in general.

We can see how that is against the rethug agenda. So it is very encouraging to me that the Star Trib is putting out this information. Even if it is the rethug point of view it is like a red flag for us to know what they are up to. I believe that STRIB at least is coming back from the dark side of propoganda speak. As long as it sells papers, I guess, but still, they HAVE heard us.

[peacetalksforall]

4. Ya gotta give it to people who call themselves leaders. Blair and

Bush and all their backers. They conspire to kill, they get propaganda organizations (formerrly news organizations) to cover for them by not reporting anything, then they stand up in front of the camera with worldwide coverage and they smile and lie. Their grins are a mile wide and they quip.

Leaders? No. Liars. Just say Leader-Liars or Lying Leaders.

We are being taken.

We only have a few responsible journalists and we might as well not have any....because they don't have a voic to the millions of people who are too busy to go down into the subject one level to figure out what this all means.

Lying journalists have wasted their lives - when it comes to what most of us were taught to value.

Hell...we are victim liars and our parents and teachers should take the blame right along with the Tim Russerts, Roger Ailes, and Rev. Moons. They taught us that we are a moral country, not perfect, but getting it better.

BLAIR AND BUSH AND ALL THE PEOPLE WHO ALLOW YOU TO FUNCTION -
I REJECT YOUR LIES!

[Tigress DEM]

12. I think the Main Stream Media is sensing a change in the wind...

I'm in a blue state, of course, but our STRIB is starting to grow some cahones, thanks - I think to appointing Kate Parry as their Reader's Rep. Every STRIB has an ombudsman position like this, but the Twin Cities paper is actually using it as a full time position to deal with the complaints and comments that come through.

I was disgusted with the content of the STRIB. I canceled my subscription long ago and for about 10 - 12 months they kept begging me to come back and I kept telling them, then start printing the truth and quit being a propoganda sheet. It seems that they got this message from a lot of other sources. At least they were concerned enough to ask why.

This weeks OP EX in the MN STRIB is interesting. Lead is "Ready to Serve?" where they are asking kids in high school if they would join up and they have a wid range of answers from yes to no and the kids seem to also show some respect for those having opposing views.

Next on the OP EX front page is a call for our govenor to quit parading about preparing for government shutdown because he can't approve a budget that meets the needs of both those living on the razor edge of poverty and the elite who don't want to see them.

He's got this "no new taxes" pledge out there and the taxpayers league up his rear because of it whenever he considers any tax hike.

Kate disappoints this week because she writes a whole piece on cutting the fat in the Taste section, but I suppose she's been innundated with mail on that.

And here's a sneaky piece. There is this guy, Jonathan Gaw who does this "by the numbers" bit and he says there are "ZERO" documented deaths from torture at Guantanamo Bay and then goes on to quote the REAL Gulag statistics. Hmmmmm? I wonder how many deaths were "documented" as being caused by torture by the Stalin administration between 1929 and 1953? Think I'll have to get out and post this as a seperate thread.

Here's a great bit though, Gov Tim Pawlenty nixed the idea of a poet laureate position. Our state's most recognized poet happens to be Garrison Keillor.

Tim says: We can benefit from the richness and diversity of all the poets in Minnesota and recognize and embrace their work as merit and circumstances warrant.

(translation - I'm a government pawn hoping to be pResident some day and no way can I appoint a poet laureate that's going to say anything against the administration.)

Garrison says:

There once was a slick fellow named Tim
Whose view of poetry was dim
So he vetoed the laureate
And thus ends the story - it
Seems fiction is pawlenty for him.

[leftchick]

5. Please please please let this be true...

~snip~

A group of 89 Democratic congressmen has already written to the President questioning him about the claims in the memo, and several of their number have told The Sunday Times they do not intend to let the matter drop, despite the White House’s refusal so far to respond.

Perhaps most significantly, the President’s continuing difficulties in Iraq are taking a heavy toll of his approval ratings, and are beginning to threaten the Republicans’ chances in mid-term elections next year. Further violence in Iraq may yet encourage a rebirth of American public interest in how the war came to be started.

.At Tuesday’s press conference, Mr Bush and Mr Blair managed to dodge serious examination of their preparations for war, but the issue does not look like going away soon.

[sabra]

6. I hear you!

I believe that they aren't going to back down from this one. Especially now that it has gained some steam...

[PurityOfEssence]

8. I love the gist of their excuse: "but that was before we went to the U.N."

Yes, assholes, you went through the motions when it was all a lie. When you're lying, the fact that you later did something else to substantiate the sham DOESN'T PROVE A THING. The next thing they're going to do is say "trust me".

It was also pathethic the way Junior hid behind Blair, and when it was his turn to speak, could only mutter the same garbled nonsense.

[notadmblnd]

9. I think at the very least it shows conspiracy

between the two leaders to take us into an illegal war. Even if it is "old news" as the little poodle says and attention was not paid to it when it originally came out. People are paying attention now and if I recall correctly conspiracy to commit a crime is illegal.

[Supersedeas]

10. entered into the record and into the annals of History--to be revised by

the Heritage Foundation

[kweerwolf]

14. "The media of Deaf Ears"

(From the article in the original post)

"The US media, stung by a series of recent scandals involving reporters who made up stories, has also been implementing ever more cautious editorial policies about anonymous sources and unofficial leaks. The media that gave birth to Deep Throat – the legendary Watergate whistleblower – was in danger of becoming the media of Deaf Ears."

Boy, those Brits sure have the U.S. MSM pegged!

[KansDem]

15. Wow!!! Nicely written...and factual too!

However, I'll wait for USAToday to interpret this for me. Gotta be careful of British English. For example, what did the reporter really mean when he wrote:

...no further doubting of the memo’s authenticity...

or

no...excuse for media foot-dragging

I don't know about the rest of you DUers, but I'm waiting for McPaper to tell me what these statements really mean in American English!

[mdelaguna2000]

16. long dormant debate about Bush's march to war?

Perhaps in the sense of the media's inattention, but some of us have been daily enraged by Iraq since the U.S. invasion began!

[JNelson6563]

17. The truth must come out.

Team Bush has to be exposed for the liars that they are.

Julie