Bush, Blair and DSM - Yesterday's press conference was taking

[Democrat 4 Ever]

a page from the GOP playbook. WE all know they did the Texas two-step and didn't answer the question but Chimpy added a little that I thought was odd.

Did anyone else notice that yesterday when questioned about the DSM that Blair and Chimpy both said that they did not talk about anything but trying to force Hussein to comply with inspections before going to the UN?

I'm paraphrasing here but it my ear caught, especially Commander Cuckoobananas, when he replied he put it in the first person and said when Tony and I discussed this we were looking for ways to not go to war, blah, blah, blah. Now the Downing Street Minutes doesn't say a word about Bush and Blair meeting during this period but that MI5 (6?) met with US officials and reported back that the intel was being fixed to make an argument for war. The Minutes reflected the US officials and Britain's officials, not Bushy himself or Blair, in those meetings. Hence the need for the Minutes of the meeting to bring Blair up to date.

Now, I'm not saying the US officials weren't acting on direct orders from Chimpy/Cheney/Rumsfeld, etc., of course they were, but it sounds like Chimpy is trying to make himself some wiggle room and twist the question by saying when "Tony and I met" and not address the question itself. He gave himself "cover" by parsing his words. Nobody has said he was in those series of meetings.

And this leads to my question, why would Chimpy insert himself and Poodle Boy into the answer regarding the DSM? Maybe I'm nitpicking but it sounded like Bushy and Blair were trying to shift the discussion away from the real Minutes back to something they knew they could have hide behind later. Well, we weren't there so who knows what those crazy representatives of ours said or did. (Standard operating procedure for Chimpy and his handlers.) They didn't actually meet and Chimpy avoided answering the question. This isn't a case of the royal "we," Chimpy steered the question to the PM and himself personally, he wasn't speaking for his representatives. This answer has been totally Roviarized.

That comment during the "press conference" was like a wrong note hit during a recital - stood out to a discerning ear. I know it is just a simple thing but shouldn't this be a red flag for reporters? When you have to parse and lie about the simple things...

[Benhurst]

1. It would be a red flag for reporters, but not for mediawhores. NT

[twenty4blackbirds]

2. agreed.

It's the typical 'give the answer to your preferred question' and not 'answer the question'.
I noticed Galloway doing it in his testimony too. It sucks when the question is badly phrased so that the answer can be re-interpreted any old how.
It's definitely a defensive posture.
Saw Blair doing it too in his interview on 'Voice of America'(?) where he didn't answer the question ref. DSM's accuracy. He guilelessly segued into enumerating the steps the 'Coalition' took of going through the UN (Bushwah imo) and how the Invasion of Iraq was initiated by Saddam Hussein's obdurate refusal to comply with UN Regs of decommissioning WMD (which we know now WMD were not there to be decomissioned) and honestly, the 'Coalition' had _no_ choice but to bomb Iraq. At no point did Blair deny the accuracy of DSM.

To be fair, he didn't confirm it either. But if DSM isn't true, why won't he say "It ain't so"

[postulater]

3. I don't think we have a prayer of bringing bush to justice without

also bringing blair down first. It's like they're two inner tubes tied together, when one goes down a bit the other holds both up for a while until he recovers.

The British have a better chance at getting their media to expose the lies than we do. But suppose they actually forgive Blair that one indiscretion. Maybe they think he will be able to favorably influence bush on Kyoto or African poverty/genocide. If he stays afloat we are going to have a hard time bringing bush down.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. But remember that Blair was present at the meeting

and he did nothing at the time to deny that the intelligence and facts were being fixed. He did nothing to contradict his Foreign Secretary's view that war was inevitable. He just suggested that maneuvering Saddam into denying entry to the inspectors might help make the war legal (but he didn't say what would happen if Saddam did allow in inspectors, and they found no WMD - I suspect if he'd said "we'll invade anyway", there might have been a few objections in the meeting).