Tim Russert on "the now-famous Downing Street memo." It's not famous from repetitive mentions in the mainstream media, so maybe Tim is reading blogs!

From the official Transcript for June 5 - Meet the Press, online at MSNBC - MSNBC.com:

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the now-famous Downing Street memo. This was a memo, July 23, 2002, from the head of British intelligence to Prime Minister Blair; in effect, notes taken from a briefing that was given to Prime Minister Blair after the head of British intelligence came back from a trip to Washington. It says this: "[The head of British Intelligence] reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, though military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
This is July of 2002. We didn't invade until March of 2003. And the prime minister of Great Britain is being told by the head of his intelligence that he went to Washington and believes that a decision had already been made and that the administration was fixing or manipulating the intelligence to support the policy.

MR. MEHLMAN: Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it since then. {blah.. blah.. blah..}

MR. RUSSERT: I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited.

MR. MEHLMAN: I believe that the findings of the report, the fact that the intelligence was somehow fixed have been totally discredited by everyone who's looked at it.

MR. RUSSERT: There--let me go back to another sentence from that report. "There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." {. . . } we now have 1,669 Americans who've died bravely in Iraq, 1,532 of those after the president said major combat operations were over. We have 12,762 Americans wounded or injured, 12,000 of those after the president said major combat was over. This memo seems to suggest that the head of British Intelligence told Prime Minister Blair that there was little discussion in Washington to plan for the aftermath of military action.

MR. MEHLMAN: I would respectfully disagree with that finding. I think that there was clearly planning that occurred, planning that occurred {blah .. blah ... blah...} I believe we're doing a very important mission in Iraq, which is defeating the terrorists, promoting democracy and you've seen throughout this spring what the effects of that democracy have been in other Arab nations.

MR. RUSSERT: The primary rationale given for the war, however, was the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. And again I refer you to the memo of the prime minister's meeting. "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 capability was less than half that of Libya, North Korea and Iran."

MR. MEHLMAN: Well, the president, I think, was responsible in saying we need to simultaneously prepare for war and also try to avoid that war. {blah etc...}

Of course a political party professional like Ken Mehlman is not going to answer with anything other than the official party line, but more important than his predictable answers is the fact that Tim Russert, who helps to define the national political dialogue in a much larger way than we bloggers do, asked the right questions yesterday, and put large chunks of the memo's unambiguous text into his questions.

Wouldn't you love to see him put the same questions to Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Rice or Bolton?

Just asking,
True Blue Liberal

Attention Passive Citizens of the Homeland: Here's the Friday Quote of the Week for Big Brass Alliance Week via Fritz Stern

Here's the quote of the day from my morning reading. It seemed appropriate for this week of intensive Downing Street Memo blogging:

...the wars and revolutions of our time have been made possible not so much by a few leaders or sects as by the multitude of passive citizens who smugly thought that politics was the responsibility of statesmen.

-- Fritz Stern, The Failure of Illiberalism:
Essays on the Political Culture of Modern Germany
[New York: Knopf, 1972, p. 146]

HM Ambassador Matthew Rycroft CBE, British Embassy, Sarajevo

I thought it might be nice to share this link to a current photo and biography of the man at the center of The Downing Street Memo, HM Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Matthew Rycroft.

(TBL is especially delighted to see that he was born on Bloomsday!)

Where are the stories on the non-Fox media?

Why is this only appearing on the Fair and Balanced Fox?

In White House Talk at The Washington Post on June 1, much of the talk was about the Downing Street Memo, but why isn't The Memo in the paper?

At least four of the questions to Dan Froomkin in White House Talk on washingtonpost.com were pointedly about The Downing Street Memo and the press's abdication of its duties. A geographically (if not politically) diverse group would not let the question drop:

"Fairfax, Va.: A Post editorial today praises President Bush for doing what he is supposed to do, hold regular press conferences. But something is missing. Look at the transcript of yesterday's press conference and you will see no questions about the Downing Street Memo which claims Bush was fixing the facts to justify the Iraq invasion. If no one lights that slow fuse you talked, how are the facts ever going to see the light of day? To see the smiling face of Mark Felt ought to inspire The Post to reclaim its heyday of investigative reporting."

"Arlington, Mass.: Dan, Why, why, why do reporters consistently not ask the President pointed questions? Yesterday's Rose Garden chat should have included questions about the Downing Street Memo, questions about the Pat Tillman cover-up, questions about {. . . } I know this frustrates you as well but what can be done??!!!"

"Pyongtaek, Korea: What will it take to get the MSM to report in-depth on the Downing Street Memo and, now that it has come to light, the stepped-up bombing campaign of Iraq months before Congress approved any action or the U.N. even considered Resolution 1441? {. . .}"

"Los Angeles, Calif.: Hi Dan, I have repeatedly asked various Washington Post online chat hosts (not all of them Post journalists) why the MSM isn't pursuing the Downing Street Memo more doggedly and the question never gets posted. I see a poster just asked you on today's chat and you answered the 2nd question but did not address the Downing Street Memo. What gives?
Dan Froomkin: I wrote about this in my May 17 column, and frankly expected coverage to pick up afterward.
I said then that the memo story was possibly "less a dud than a bomb with a long, slow fuse."
So I guess that either the fuse is even longer than I had thought, and investigative reporters are digging away even as we speak, or the American press is cynical enough to consider this all old news."

Or maybe all the investigative reporters are just careerists more interested in getting Bush to invite them to, and call on them at Rose Garden events. Or maybe all their digging is for the book they plan to write in a few years rather than the public service they can do by publicizing this now.

But it is great to see that the mainstream media outlets are getting pressure from all directions about this lack of coverage. How many people do you think are calling or writing to them with complaints that there's too little coverage about Michael Jackson or the Runafuckingwaybride?

Just asking, TBL

Morning Update on the News Media's Great Downing Street Memo Blackout

Here's the morning update on one of my favorite activities during this period of emphasis on The Downing Street Memo, checking news.google.com for the raw number of news hits for three stories. Here are the results at 8:15 est (with a comparison to yesterday at the exact same time):

"Downing Street Memo" -- 305 hits (17 more than yesterday's 288). Most of the hits are still from blogs and activist sites, though some of the new hits are from right-wing Fox-related sites like NewsMax (preparing their followers to debunk and defame The Memo? To give it the Rather/Newsweek treatment?).
"Runaway Bride" --6,070 hits (810 more than yesterday's 5,260 hits). Most are from mainstream media outlets.
"Michael Jackson" -- 23,800 hits (or 2,400 more than yesterday's 21,400 hits). But we still can't get enough information on this ex-pop idol.

Click on the links yourself for a minute by minute update of the totals. It will be interesting to see if the Conyers letter or the promised Kerry speech finally does anything to spike the numbers. Maybe it will. Maybe the fact that the right is gearing up for the debunking and the counterattacks is a very good sign.

True Blue Liberal

Kerry promises the bring up The Downing Street Memo in Washington on Monday -- "It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

On SouthcoastToday.com, webpage of The Standard-Times (not exactly the major mainstream media yet) "Kerry assails Bush on Iraq" (and raises The Downing Street Memo!) 6/ 2/ 2005:

"Sen. Kerry puzzled over the apparent lack of interest by Americans in the Iraq war and the near silence in the U.S. mass media about the so-called Downing Street Memo.
That leaked secret document, the minutes of a 2002 cabinet meeting of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, says bluntly that Mr. Bush had decided to attack Iraq long before going to Congress with the matter, and that 'intelligence was being fixed around the policy.'
It caused an uproar in Great Britain and badly hurt Mr. Blair in national elections but went almost unnoticed in the United States.
'When I go back (to Washington) on Monday, I am going to raise the issue,' he said of the memo, which has not been disputed by either the British or American governments. 'I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that.' "

Will the media outside of New Bedford, Massachusetts pick this up?

The Shape of the Right-Wing Response to The Downing Street Memo

It may not be as bad as Tom Tomorrow's vision of Jeffrey Dahmer as a Right Wing Pundit, but I have received some responses about The Downing Street Memo in my recent Comments from those who appear to be somewhat to the right of the Big Brass Alliance. These excerpts should give a sense of what we might hear if the mainstream media ever does pick up the ball and start running with it (admittedly a big if):

"A British Memo about President Bush. No one but Liberals believe this. This is the Dan Rather,Newsweek report in Britian. Stop hating America so much. Your love of George Soro's only goes to show you hate America. Why would you take what a true Nazi like Soro's is and run withit. He compares all Republicans to Nazi's even though he is a card carrier himself." [emphasis added, it was hard to resist adding sics]

Among the grammatical errors, I'm especially impressed by the superfluous apostrophe in Soros (toward whom I've never expressed an opinion one way or the other in this blog, but he's obviously a Fox and Limbaugh whipping boy).

And another:

"Another Newsweek, Dan Rather hatchett Liberal Media Job. Move On.Org yeah thats a credible place. Lets see people said Swift Boat Vets truthful. Move On .Org big piece of manure. Bush win re-election Kerry crybabies keep crying." [emphasis added]

I could not have written a better parody myself. On the other hand, we have to get it on the mainstream media first before these rants are heard through the land. The status of that effort is still in doubt.

One of my favorite activities during this period of emphasis on The Downing Street Memo has been to check news.google.com for three stories. Here are the results at 8:15 est this morning:

"Downing Street Memo" -- 288 hits, only one from a "Major" source, and that source is FOX News!! A quick scan shows that most of the hits are from blogs and activist sites.
"Runaway Bride" --5,260 hits, "168 related" in the top major news story category, and a quick flip through the pages and pages of hits shows that most are from mainstream media outlets.
"Michael Jackson" -- 21,400 hits, "967 related" in the top major news story category, and a quick flip through the pages and pages and pages and pages of hits shows that most are from mainstream media outlets.

Hey Kids! Have Fun! Get Depressed! Click on the links yourself for an update of the totals! Does anyone doubt that this is a media problem even more than a problem with our government? Does anyone doubt that The Downing Street Memo would be a major issue for Americans if its contents were as well known as the Runafuckingwaybride's eyes and Michael (whose-last-hit-was-in-the-past-century) Jackson's nose?

Just asking,
True Blue Liberal

NEWS FLASH : MoveOn joins the fight for the Downing Street Memo!!!

Here's the e-mail I just received from MoveOn.org with the subject heading "Demand networks cover appalling Iraq memo"; it's useful for the e-mail addresses and telephone numbers:

Dear MoveOn member,
A London newspaper rocked British elections when it leaked a top intelligence official's report that President Bush was intent on invading Iraq long before he sought Congress' approval. Bush called Iraq an urgent threat, but the memo says "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."1 British officials are not denying the memo's accuracy, and a former senior American official called it "an absolutely accurate description of what transpired."2 This revelation nearly cost Prime Minister Tony Blair his re-election, and it was all over the British press. But American newspapers barely mentioned this new evidence that Bush twisted the facts to justify war. The major newspapers ran one or two stories rehashing the British reports. Worse, TV network news shows haven't covered the memo at all.3 Readers of the New York Times recently demanded coverage of the British memo, and the newspaper finally wrote a full story.4 We can do the same for network news.
Please call or email the nightly news programs you watch, at:
ABC World News Tonight
Phone: 212-456-4040
PeterJennings@abcnews.com
CBS Evening News
Phone: 212-975-3691
evening@cbsnews.com
NBC Nightly News
Phone: 212-664-4971
nightly@nbc.com
PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Phone: 703-739-5000
newshour@pbs.org
Identify yourself as a viewer, then say something like:
"Please investigate and report on the British memo suggesting the Bush administration manipulated intelligence to support its plans to invade Iraq. We need to know what really happened. Thank you for your time."
It's important to track our impact. Please let us know you're calling at:
http://www.moveon.org/mediacorps/
britishmemo.html?id=5614-1457123-JGH6fGYJQ6ojVyJqzQjsfg&t=1
The American media's failure to question the Bush administration led to an unnecessary war. Now the media's failure to cover the war is making it impossible for Americans to unite behind an exit plan. This won't get better until we demand more coverage of the war.
Thank you for all that you do,
–Noah, Wes, Micayla, Matt and the MoveOn.org Team
Wednesday, June 1st, 2005

The new TBL Poll of the Week is Up! What's the most likely ultimate reaction to the Downing Street Memo?

Here's the brand-new Big Brass Alliance Edition of the TBL Poll of the Week. Vote here or in the sidebar:

What do you feel is the most likely result of the Downing Street Memo?
	Impeachment of the President
	Serious Congressional (and/or independent government) investigation
	Quick Congressional (and/or independent government) whitewash
	No Congressional action despite intense media pressure and interest
	No Congressional or Mainstream Media interest
	No immediate effect, but a keystone in the historical legacy of the second Bush
	A blip in the blogosphere and a minor footnote to history
	The What Street Memo? Never heard of it.
Free polls from Pollhost.com

See last week's poll here. You can still vote for the most appropriate name for our opponents on the right (at 9:30 on June 1, Radical Republicans leads with 24%, Neo-Conservative and Regressive are tied at 16%, Illiberal has 12%, Reactionary and Fundamentalist have 8%, and Red State, Right Wing, and Conservative are tied with 4% -- one commenter wrote in Asshats).