Delicous Retort to Michael Kinsley and his LATimes article on the DSM

BigBearJohn

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Mon Jun-13-05 01:05 AM
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Delicous Retort to Michael Kinsley and his LATimes article on the DSM

Edited on Mon Jun-13-05 01:06 AM by BigBearJohn

Michael Kinsley chokes on the Downing Street Memo
Filed under: General Eric's Page— Eric Brewer @ 12:07 pm
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Michael Kinsley, Editorial Page Editor
The Los Angeles Times

Dear Mike,

I read in the L.A. Times today that you were dragged kicking and screaming to your desk and forced by “200 emails from strangers” to write about the Downing Street Memo. I could tell you weren’t too happy about it from the way you describe your tormentors (Americans who are concerned that their government lied to them in order to start a war) as: “paranoid…extreme… a vast conspiracy.”

In your column, you deny that the memo provides much support for the assertion that Bush had already decided to go to war:

But even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It states that war is “now seen as inevitable” by “Washington.” That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if “Washington” meant administration decision-makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C was only saying that these people believed that war was how events would play out.
“The usual freelance chatterboxes"? Uh, Mr. Kinsley, right in that same paragraph of the memo it says, “The NSC had no patience with the UN route.” That’s the National Security Council, Mike, then headed by Condoleezza Rice. I’ll let you decide whether she was an “administration decision-maker” or a “freelance chatterbox.” And evidently you didn’t read the second page of the memo where you would have seen this: “The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.”

I'’ll say it slowly, so you can understand, Mike. It. Seemed. Clear. That. Bush. Had. Made. Up. His. Mind.

Finally, you conclude that everyone has always known that Bush had decided, way back in the summer of 2002, to go to war. In other words, what the “paranoid extremists” are saying is just common knowledge. As evidence, you quote a column written around the time of the Downing Street meeting by “left-wing Los Angeles Times columnist” Robert Scheer, in which Scheer said that the coming war was “much planned for.” Curiously, you fail to cite Bush, who said, two weeks before the invasion: “I’ve not made up our mind about military action,” and who said last Monday, referring to claims that he had made up his mind eight months before the invasion, that “There’s nothing farther from the truth.” I know, Mike, that Bob Scheer looms large in your world, but in the lives of most Americans, sad to say, President Bush has more influence.

In conclusion, Mike, don’t feel bad that bloggers beat you to the biggest story of the decade. But do see a doctor soon. I hear that now they’ve got antidotes to that bad Kool-Aid.

SOURCE: http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/index.php?p=974

Delicous Retort to Michael Kinsley and his LATimes article on the DSM

DOWNING STREET MINUTES - OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MINUTES OF AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MEETING - distributed to U.K. EYES ONLY in the form of a memorandum...