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Banned
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Originally Posted by Lebell
I am closely watching this thread for tone.
That being said, my own comment is that if the liberal NYT says that there isn't enough evidence or reason to impeach Bush, there probably isn't.
Host, your spin on the news is...interesting.
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Lebell, my "spin" is that the NY Times may seem liberal, just as Fox News may seem conservative. Sadly, both, along with the Washington Post, and NBC, etc.,
are businesses intent on retaining existing "eyeballs", while desperately trying to attract new ones, any way that they can.
(If this post is "too long", it is intended to be read by the few folks who will find it interesting enough to read. As the comment on the lower part of the page on this link, http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0617/dailyUpdate.html partially reads, "Fred Kaplan, who does an extensive analysis of the memo for Slate.com, writes that the [Downing Street]memo is both insignificant and significant......
.....On the other hand, he writes, historians will one day use it as a "primary-source documents" and will be a "key footnote in the history books."".)
NBC used Dateline's broadcast earlier this evening to shill for Katy Couric's upcoming coup.....a semi-exclusive interview with the "runaway bride", one last attempt to squeeze a little more mileage out of a pathetic non-story that has demonstrated an ability to attract viewer interest. A current effor in that regard is the overexposure of the teen missing in Aruba http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr...nG=Search+News
( 4220 seperate links on a google news search ).
In contrast, the MS media does not wish to elevate the controversy sparked by the early May, UK Sunday Times reporting of the "Downing Street Memo", ( DSM )by giving it the coverage that it deserves, because no news organization wants to jeapordize "access" by further anatagonizing the Bush White House.
Only 1822 google news links for "Downing Memo" appear,
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr...nG=Search+News even now, at the height of this story's exposure, principally due to the huge efforts of congressman John Conyers.
Bob Woodward, managing editor at WaPo at age 62, chose access to the White House several years ago, with the goal of writing <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743204735/102-3376232-6609754?v=glance">Bush at War</a> . WaPo news reporter Dana Milbank, who shares membership in the Yale secret society, "Skull and Bones" was chosen to cover the White House while Woodward was trading his "access" for avoidance of his newspaper asking hard questions in the "run up" to the invasion of Iraq.
Woodward at 29 would hardly have avoided covering the Watergate story in exchange for access to the Nixon White House.
The other excuse for non-coverage of the "DSM" is that the media knows that the majority of Americans will not be attracted to following that story, either because of political or idealogical reasons, or because it seems too complicated for their short lil spans of attention. There's no sex, no "Tom & Katy", no "Jacko", no easily promoted sound bites, and the media cannot control the direction of the story. It's very similar to the coverage that the "run up to war" received, in the first place. "WMD", "evil dictator who gassed his own people", "9/11", "terror", "al-queda" "Saddam" "terror".....then......"Shock and Awe".
Fox News has signed Wesley Clark in an effort shore up ratings:
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/06/15/...ws_channel.php
Fox is not concerned about losing existing viewers, as Cheney said, "I usually watch Fox News....." They recognize the need to attract new ones, and Clark iis the "bait".
IMO, it is also difficult to report on the contradictions and deceptions that emanate from the white house press briefings conducted by Scott McClellan, reduced by what amounts to being the apologist for a failed presidency that is comprised of yet to be indicted conspirators. He seems more and more eerily similar to "Baghdad Bob", as U.S. troops invaded Iraq.
I'll proudly wear the "FRINGE" label, if the quotes below, pass for the remarks and the press briefings of a credible, legitimate presidency in a "free" society !
With the following quotes from Bush (Jan 31. 2003) and then a Jan. 12, 2005 exchange with the press where McClellan admits that there are "no WMD" and that none are likely to be found, he nonetheless declares on June 16, 2005 that, "Iraq is critical to winning the war on terrorism. It is critical to our long-term security here at home.". "Failed but promoted" former NSA director Condi Rice was heard to parrot McClellan's "long-term security" nonsense in news reports, the same day.
McClellan then goes on to make the excuse for the white house refusing to respond to a letter received more than a month ago, signed by 88 congress members, requesting more information regarding the contention of "the Downing Street" memo, that the White House "intended to "fix the facts" around the plan to invade Iraq, in July 2002". McClellan dismissed the need to respond to the letter by pointing out that the author, Conyers, had "voted
against the war". He offered only the feeble retort "that this has already been discussed", in response to questions as to whether the other 87 signatories, including 2 Republicans, deserved answers to the five questions in the letter.
The letter was resubmitted to the white house, that same day, this time signed by 122 congress members, and 560,000 citizens. The press has been maneuvered into covering this, and it the pressure will grow, either because a formal inquiry on the same matter will be convened in the UK, or because the memo leaker will continue to feed the British press with authentic and embarassing information that will further discredit Bush and Blair.
Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030131-23.html
THE PRIME MINISTER: Adam.
Q One question for you both. Do you believe that there is a link between Saddam Hussein, a direct link, and the men who attacked on September the 11th?
THE PRESIDENT: I can't make that claim.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050112-7.html
.............. Q The President accepts that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, he said back in October that the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer concluded what his predecessor had said, as well, that the weapons that we all believed were there, based on the intelligence, were not there. And now what is important is that we need to go back and look at what was wrong with much of the intelligence that we accumulated over a 12-year period and that our allies had accumulated over that same period of time, and correct any flaws.
Q I just want to make sure, though, because you said something about following up on additional reports and learning more about the regime. You are not trying to hold out to the American people the possibility that there might still be weapons somewhere there, are you?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I just said that if there are -- if there are any other reports, obviously, of weapons of mass destruction, then people will follow up on those reports. I'm just stating a fact.
Q And finally, what is the President's assessment of the damage to American credibility that might have been done by his very forceful case that there were weapons and his launching of a war on that basis?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, nothing has changed in terms of the President's view....................
........... Q I'm talking about preemptive military action.
MR. McCLELLAN: Right. And that's the last option that you always want to pursue. But the President is going to continue working closely with our friends and allies to confront the threats that we face --
Q How can he do it again --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- and we continue to take steps to improve our intelligence. That's what the President is going to do. We have very good relationships with countries across the world because of the President's efforts over the last few years...............
.......... Q Even if the information is wrong?.............
............. Q Secretary Rumsfeld said you go -- infamously, he said, "you go to war with the Army that you have." Well, this administration went to war, when it went to war, based on information that proved to be incorrect. Does the President now regret the timing of this? Does he feel that the war effort and its aftermath and the post-immediate war conflict phase was undermined by that timetable and intelligence that was wrong?
MR. McCLELLAN: Based on what we know today, the President would have taken the same action, because this is about protecting the American people. As I said -- .................
......... Q Two follow-ups. There's been quite a bit of talk that Syria might have hidden some of these weapons of mass destruction. Is the government of Syria cooperating at all in the search for WMD?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you have the report from Charles Duelfer. You can go and look at that report in terms of addressing those issues, and I think the President has spoken to the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, if there are any other reports that come to people's attention, they'll follow up on those reports. ......
Q Scott, are you saying that the President -- it's the President's view that the WMD situation has not hurt United States credibility around the world?....
......... Q So if the information is wrong, is there no consequence?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
Q If the information about WMDs is wrong, as we all agree now, is there no consequence? ........
............. Q Scott, did the White House intend to, at any point, come out and tell the American people that the search for WMD was over?............
........... Q Scott, you've addressed the intelligence failures. Based on that, would the President send a Secretary of State -- Condoleezza Rice -- to the United Nations to make the same kind of case that Secretary Powell made based on U.S. intelligence?...........
.............. Q Well, to put a finer point on it, does he have enough confidence in the current quality of intelligence to go to the United Nations with it, if need be, or not -- as was mentioned, Korea, Iran, or some other --............
............. Q Has it improved enough, though, for him to act on it?
MR. McCLELLAN: He will -- he will act on intelligence that he receives to protect the American people. When we have actionable intelligence, we will act on it. And this President has acted on it in a number of cases...................
......... Q One question on Iraq. Are you worried that with your report, countries like France will gather more credibility than the U.S. in discussions in the Security Council of the United Nations? ............
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0050616-5.html
............The President wants to see the troops come home soon. But the best way to honor the service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform is to complete the mission.
Iraq is critical to winning the war on terrorism. It is critical to our long-term security here at home. A free Iraq will help transform a dangerous region of the world. A free Iraq will send a signal to the rest of the Middle East, those who -- the people in the Middle East who are standing up for freedom. And so the President will be talking about this.............
.............. Elaine, go ahead. Let me keep going because the President is going to be speaking here shortly, so I want to try to get around to others who have their hands up, as well.
Q Scott, on another topic, has the President or anyone else from the administration responded to the letter sent last month by Congressman John Conyers and signed by dozens of members of the House of Representatives, regarding the Downing Street memo? Has the President or anyone else responded?
MR. McCLELLAN: Not that I'm aware of.
Q Why not?
MR. McCLELLAN: Why not? Because I think that this is an individual who voted against the war in the first place and is simply trying to rehash old debates that have already been addressed. And our focus is not on the past. It's on the future and working to make sure we succeed in Iraq.
These matters have been addressed, Elaine. I think you know that very well. The press --
Q Scott, 88 members of Congress signed that letter.
MR. McCLELLAN: The press -- the press have covered it, as well.
Q What do you say about them?
Q But, Scott, don't they deserve the courtesy of a response back?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, this has been addressed. Go ahead. ................
............... April.
Q Scott, on John Conyers, John Conyers is walking here with that letter again, as you have acknowledged from Elaine's comment. But 88 leaders on Capitol Hill signed that letter. Now, I understand what you're saying about him, but what about the other 88 who signed this letter, wanting information, answers to these five questions?
MR. McCLELLAN: How did they vote on the war -- the decision to go to war in Iraq?
Q Well, you have two -- well, if that's the case, you have two Republicans who are looking for a timetable. How do you justify that?
MR. McCLELLAN: I already talked about that.
Q I understand, but let's talk about this.
MR. McCLELLAN: Like I said --
Q Well, just because -- I understand -- but wait a minute, that's not -- if leaders from Congress -- if you're talking about unifying and asking for everyone to come together, why not answer, whether they wanted the war or not, answer a letter where John Conyers wrote to the President and then 88 congressional leaders signed? Why not answer that?
MR. McCLELLAN: For the reasons I stated earlier. This is simply rehashing old debates that have already been discussed. ..............
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Quote:
http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200506170006
by Jamison Foser
Week ending June 17, 2005
www.mediamatters.org
action@mediamatters.org
This week:
As controversy over pre-war intelligence grows, Washington Post leads the coverup..........
.........As controversy over pre-war intelligence grows, Washington Post leads the coverup
In May 2001 -- just months into President Bush's first term -- Washington Post reporter John F. Harris wrote a column for his paper's Outlook section, arguing:
Are the national news media soft on Bush? The instinctive response of any reporter is to deny it. But my rebuttals lately have been wobbly. The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars.
[...]
Above all, however, there is one big reason for Bush's easy ride: There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and undermine a new president.
[...]
Reporters and editors do not work like commentators. There are no newsroom deliberations about how "soft" or "mean" to be on a president. And we aim to make our own judgments about what's important, rather than respond in Pavlovian fashion to whatever ideologues or interest groups are inveighing about. But there's no denying that we give more coverage to stories when someone is shouting. For example, the toughest coverage Bush has gotten has been over decisions to suspend environmental rules issued by Clinton, which infuriated liberals.
Harris's premise -- that negative stories about Bush hadn't gained traction because Democrats hadn't been "shouting" loudly enough -- has been dusted off and reused by others to defend the media's failure to thoroughly cover stories damaging to Bush. The Post's Dan Froomkin noted as much in January 2005, when he wrote: "One frequently mentioned factor in the algebra of White House coverage during the first term was that the opposition didn't make the anti-Bush case very forcefully."
The notion that tepid Democratic criticism of Bush is to blame for lackadaisical media coverage of the president was always a flimsy justification for not following up on Bush administration scandals, but now even "flimsy" is too kind: If they hadn't been before, House Democrats began shouting this week, with several openly discussing whether the president has committed impeachable offenses.
The week began with a report in the Middletown, New York,<a href="http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2005/06/13/drhousem.htm">Times Herald-Record</a> that Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) raised the possibility that Bush's misuse of pre-war intelligence may constitute an impeachable offense:
What if President Bush lied to Congress and the American people, used those lies to gain congressional approval for military action against Iraq and launched a war that killed 1,700 Americans and tens of thousands of others?
That might have been a hypothetical question a month ago; it might not be hypothetical anymore.
In fact, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, says the answer to the question could lead to the impeachment of President Bush.
[...]
[C]alls for a congressional inquiry into the questions raised by the memo are growing louder, with some even discussing a Bush impeachment.
"If the president intentionally twisted the facts about the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war, and lied to Congress about it, and then elicited authorization from Congress to launch a war that's caused the deaths of 1,700 U.S. men and women along with tens of thousands of others, that is definitely an impeachable offense," Hinchey said.
Curiously, Hinchey's comments weren't picked up by any news source available on Nexis, other than in an op-ed published in the Baltimore Sun.
On Thursday, House Democrats held a forum to discuss the Downing Street memo and pre-war intelligence. The Associated Press reported:
Amid new questions about President Bush's drive to topple Saddam Hussein, several House Democrats urged lawmakers on Thursday to conduct an official inquiry to determine whether the president intentionally misled Congress.
At a public forum where the word "impeachment" loomed large, Exhibit A was the so-called Downing Street memo, a prewar document leaked from inside the British government to The Sunday Times of London a month and a half ago. Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, organized the event.
Recounting a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair's national security team, the memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the ouster of Saddam.
"The intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy," one of the participants was quoted as saying at the meeting, which took place just after British officials returned from Washington.
The president "may have deliberately deceived the United States to get us into a war," Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., said. "Was the president of the United States a fool or a knave?"
[...]
The White House refuses to respond to a May 5 letter from 122 congressional Democrats about whether there was a coordinated effort to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy, as the Downing Street memo says.
[...]
Conyers and a half-dozen other members of Congress were stopped at the White House gate later Thursday when they hand-delivered petitions signed by 560,000 Americans who want Bush to provide a detailed response to the Downing Street memo. When Conyers couldn't get in, an anti-war demonstrator shouted, "Send Bush out!" Eventually, White House aides retrieved the petitions at the gate and took them into the West Wing.
"Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war," Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said earlier at the event on Capitol Hill.
Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, a point that Rangel underscored by saying he's already been through two impeachments. He referred to the impeachment of President Clinton for an affair with a White House intern and of President Nixon for Watergate, even though Nixon resigned to avoid impeachment.
But while the AP, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/politics/17downing.ready.htm">The New York Times</a>,<a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0506/16/lol.04.html">CNN</a>, and other news outlets gave the forum serious, if imperfect, coverage, The Washington Post covered it only with a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601570.html">"Washington Sketch"</a> by Dana Milbank. Too busy cracking wise about Democrats' "trip to the land of make-believe" to provide readers a serious account of the proceeding, Milbank referred to the participants as a "hearty band of playmates" and described T-shirts worn by activists several blocks away -- but <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1113">couldn't be bothered</a> to note that more than 120 members of Congress, including the House Minority Leader, have signed a letter demanding the president answer questions about the Downing Street memo.
Milbank's snide dismissal of the forum, by the way, ran on page A6 of the Post; the tone and the placement of the piece call to mind Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr.'s 2004 admission that the paper had been too dismissive of administration critics. Post media reporter Howard Kurtz <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58127-2004Aug11?language=printer">wrote</a> on August 12, 2004:
In retrospect, said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "we were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part."
Across the country, "the voices raising questions about the war were lonely ones," Downie said. "We didn't pay enough attention to the minority."
We eagerly await Downie's latest apology, and that of his colleagues. They'll need a new excuse, though: the claim that Democrats are failing to "shout" loud enough won't fly this time.
Hard to believe as it may be, the Post's wisecracks about the forum didn't constitute the most dismal coverage of the event: Fox News Channel didn't bother to show up. The closest Fox News came to covering the forum was Carl Cameron's report on Special Report With Brit Hume:
CAMERON: Meanwhile, Detroit Congressman John Conyers went over some old ground, unveiling and delivering to the White House a half-million petitions collected by the liberal group MoveOn.org. They demand answers about Britain's so-called Downing Street memo, which critics say indicates the Bush administration deceived the public in the run-up to the Iraq war, charges both the president and Tony have flatly denied and that White House aides almost refuse to discuss.
"Went over some old ground"? Where could Cameron have gotten the idea that the Downing Street memo is "old ground"? From White House press secretary Scott McClellan, perhaps? Cameron's report was followed by a clip of McClellan:
MCCLELLAN: This is an individual who voted against the war in the first place and is simply trying to rehash old debates.
To recap: members of the U.S. House of Representatives, meeting in the Capitol building, discussed the possible impeachment of the President of the United States -- and Fox News didn't deem that worth even mentioning. What, exactly, does a member of the minority party in have to do to get covered on Fox News? Self-immolate in the parking lot of the Capitol?
Back to the Washington Post: On Wednesday, the paper's editorial page <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401383.html">argued:</a>
Bloggers have demanded to know why "the mainstream media" have not paid more attention to them [British memos]. Though we can't speak for The Post's news department, the answer appears obvious: The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002.
The Post is lying. Yes, lying.
Reasonable people can have honest disagreements about the significance of the British memos that have recently come to light; reasonable people can have honest disagreements about what, if anything, they "prove." But it is simply not honest, and not reasonable, to say they "add not a single fact to what was previously known." Perhaps the Post editorial board would like to direct us to previous reporting of the fact that the head of British intelligence thought in July 2002 that the Bush administration was "fix[ing] intelligence" to fit its decision to go to war? Presumably, the Post can also direct us to previous public disclosure of the fact that British intelligence officials were suggesting in July 2002 that the Bush administration was pegging the timing of military action to that year's congressional elections? We remember fondly a time when the Post tried to overcome cover-ups rather than taking a lead role in them.
But the Post hasn't done it alone: A new Media Matters study <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200506160002">demonstrates</a> that major print and broadcast media "largely ignored the Downing Street memo," rarely covering it and even more rarely conducting original reporting into the matter.
Salon.com's Joe Conason took "the nation's most prominent journalists" <a href="http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2005/06/17/dsm_press/index_np.html">to task</a> for downplaying new information about Bush's use of pre-war intelligence:
Deciding what constitutes news is a subjective exercise, of course, with all the uncertainty that implies. Yet there are several obvious guidelines to keep in mind while listening to the excuses proffered in the New York Times and the Washington Post by reporters who must know better.
A classified document recording deliberations by the highest officials of our most important ally over the decision to wage war is always news. A document that shows those officials believed the justification for war was "thin" and that the intelligence was being "fixed" is always news. A document that indicates the president was misleading the world about his determination to wage war only as a last resort is always news.
And when such a document is leaked, whatever editors, reporters and producers may think "everyone" already knows or believes about its contents emphatically does not affect whether that piece of paper is news. The journalists' job is to determine whether it is authentic and then to probe into its circumstances and meaning. There are many questions still to be answered about the Downing Street memo, but the nation's most prominent journalists still aren't asking them.
Media Matters laid out <a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/200506150005">some of those questions</a> this week:
The Downing Street Memo raises important questions that are most decidedly not "old news" and need to be asked. Among these questions reporters might consider asking are the following:
1.
The Downing Street Memo relates discussions about Iraq between Richard Dearlove, chief of British intelligence agency MI6, and Bush administration officials. Presumably, the head of British intelligence would have met with senior administration officials. With whom did Dearlove meet? Who told him that military action was inevitable? Were these officials also making public statements indicating that the administration had not decided whether to invade?
2.
Exactly what did American officials tell Dearlove that led him to conclude that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy?
3.
The memo states that in early 2002 the administration had begun "spikes of activity" -- i.e., increased bombings of Iraq -- to pressure Saddam Hussein. Documents recently released in Britain showed that the Royal Air Force dramatically increased bombings of Iraq during 2002, presumably in concert with the United States. Was the intent to goad Saddam into a military response that could be used as a pretext for invading Iraq?
4.
The memo states, "No decisions had been taken, but [the British Defense Secretary] thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections." The Bush administration began to make the case for war in September 2002 because, according to White House chief of staff Andrew Card, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Were the November 2002 elections part of the calculation on the timing of the invasion?
5.
According to the memo, "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD [weapons of mass destruction] capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." How does the administration square this with its multiple, unequivocal statements on Saddam's supposedly terrifying arsenal of weapons?
6.
During their recent <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/06/20050607-2.html">joint press conference</a>, both Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair denied that the decision to go to war had been made by the summer of 2002. Yet no one has disputed the memo's authenticity. So were U.S. officials lying to Dearlove, telling him that war was a foregone conclusion when it wasn't? Was Dearlove lying to Blair about what he was told? Both possibilities seem absurd, yet someone somewhere was not telling the truth: either Dearlove, the American officials with whom he met, or Bush and Blair. Which is it?
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Last edited by host; 06-17-2005 at 10:46 PM..
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