SALON– Halfway through Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” host Tim Russert, interviewing
Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, asked about a secret,
top-level British government memorandum. Consisting of minutes from a July 23,
2002, meeting attended by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his closest advisors,
the memo revealed their impression that the Bush administration, eight months
before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, had already decided to invade and
that Washington seemed more concerned with justifying a war than preventing
one.
The memo was leaked this year to the Times of London, which printed it on May 1. The story, coming on the eve of Blair’s reelection, generated extensive press coverage in Britain. In setting up his question to Mehlman on Sunday, Russert said, “Let me turn to the now famous Downing Street memo” (emphasis added).
Famous? It would be famous in America if the D.C. press corps functioned the way it’s supposed to. Russert’s June 5 reference, five weeks after the story broke, represented the first time NBC News had even mentioned the document or the controversy surrounding it. In fact, Russert’s query was the first time any of the network news divisions addressed the issue seriously. In an age of instant communications, the American mainstream media has taken an exceedingly long time — as if news of the memo had traveled by vessel across the Atlantic Ocean — to report on the leaked document. Nor has it considered its grave implications — namely, that President Bush lied to the American people and Congress during the run-up to the war with Iraq when he insisted over and over again that war was his administration’s last option.
And yet, as Russert’s weeks-late inquiry illustrates, the Downing Street memo story has also refused to simply fade away. Championed by progressive activists, media advocates, nearly 100 Democratic members of Congress, liberal radio hosts and bloggers, ombudsmen, a handful of columnists and an army of newspaper readers — who have flooded editors with letters demanding that the story be reported — the British memo continues to enjoy a peculiar afterlife. A small band of protesters, led by a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, even held a sidewalk vigil outside a Tampa, Fla., television station over the weekend, demanding that it “Air the truth!” about the memo.
At Tuesday’s joint White House press briefing, Bush and Blair were finally asked about the memo in public, an event that the press dutifully chronicled. But the two leaders, not accepting follow-up questions, simply denied the accuracy of the memo’s contents, while circumventing the central question of why Blair’s most senior intelligence officer believed the White House had already decided on war in the summer of 2002. (Bush finished his response to the memo question with his well-worn catchphrase, “The world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.”)
The fact that it took five weeks for more than a handful of Washington reporters to focus on the memo highlights a striking disconnect between some news consumers and mainstream news producers. The memo story epitomizes a mainstream press corps that is genuinely afraid to ask tough questions and write tough stories about the Bush administration. Worse, in the case of the Downing Street memo, it simply refuses to report on the existence of a plainly newsworthy document.
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Written by Eric Boehlert
© SALON 2005
Photo by flickr user Editor
War on religion? Don’t make me laugh. What’s REALLY drvniig this circus is the fact that Republicans and Tea-publicans desperately need a distraction from the sorry sorry set of presidential candidates that they have fielded. Likewise, the churches need a distraction from all those costly court settlements and empty pews. Both of them want to rally their dispirited troops, in a fake non-existent war on religion . One of the legitimate (and most important) functions of government is to promote equality and fairness for all, by having everyone play by the same rules, and enjoy the same rights. Absolutely NO ONE is coming into our Churches or places of worship and trying to tell parishioners what to believe…or forcing them to use contraception. BUT If the Bishops (and other denominations) want to continue running businesses that employ millions of people of varying faiths -or no “faith” at all- THEN they must play by the rules that other workers live by, and the rights they enjoy…..ESPECIALLY if the churches use our tax dollars (and skip paying taxes) in the process. Just because a religious group in America claims to believe something, we cannot excuse them from obeying the law in the PUBLIC arena, based on that belief. They can legally attempt to change the law, but not to deny it outright, whenever they feel like it. [Hey guys, we’re gonna stone the adulterers, and you can’t stop us
] If they want to plunge overtly into politics from the pulpit, then they should give up their tax-exempt status. Are they churches, are they places of WORSHIP?….or… are they super-pacs? They need to decide- or have the IRS decide for them. Did I miss something, or when they righteously chant “sanctity of life”, are they still all card-carrying conscientious objectors, are they still all refusing to take up arms, are they still all totally against the death penalty, are they still all against contraception and birth-control in all its forms, all the time, everytime? Oh well, hypocrisy is often at the heart of politics, and politics masquerading as religion even more so. This country is a wonderful, invigorating mixture of all the diversity that life has to offer, drawing its strength FROM that diversity. TRUE religious freedom gives everyone the right to make personal decisions, including whether to use birth control, based on our own beliefs and according to what is best for our health and our families. It does NOT however give anyone, including the bishops, the right to impose their beliefs on others, and to discriminate in the name of religious liberty when they hire employ and fire people. People of faith should not let themselves be used as pawns in a fake war against religion . Don’t believe the hype: Because the ONLY war that’s going on here is a war against women and families who want to control their own futures. Postscript: An interesting point to consider is this: Mitt Romney tried to score some points by telling us that his dad was born in Mexico. However , the REASON for that was that Mitt’s Mormon Grand-dad LEFT the United States in the 1880’s and went to Mexico because laws against polygamy were passed in the U.S. (and, being a Mormon, Mitt’s Grand-dad wanted to keep his multiple wives). SO… if we follow the logic of the people crying crocodile tears about a non-existent war on religion , then the U.S. should have allowed polygamy (and who knows what else) just because a particular religion claimed it as their belief. GIVE ME A BREAK! Or better yet, give me a TAX-break. Cause I’m gonna start my own religion. Definitely. Hey Newt -wanna join? We’re gonna have open marriages and multiple wives and all SORTS of neat stuff that you’re just gonna love! And for Mitt and Ron, hey, just for you guys: no taxes AT ALL …and human sacrifice of illegal aliens. Televised. Whoooppee! What a country! 