Why Is ILE COVERING UP the Downing Street Memo?

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Looked for a thread on this, which probably exists, but I can't find it. I'm sure it was discussed in context of the British election, but it's finally making a belated U.S. appearance (it's a big ocean, news travels slow). It's made the leap from lefty blogs to lead item on Romenesko, and even scored a few questions in the Bush/Blair press conference Tuesday, which means all the big news organizations who initially either blew it off or buried are likely to feel compelled to at least look like they care about for another few days (e.g. The Downing Street Memo Story Won't Die).

But, of course, one more smoking gun at this late stage isn't going to mean diddly. It will eventually be concluded that by "the intelligence and facts are being fixed", Mr. Dearlove was merely indulging in a bit of crackly Britishism that really just meant "organized around, pursuant to relevant information that was being gathered by intelligence agencies the world over." I look forward to George Will or someone explaining to us the charming differences between American English and British English, and how words there don't always mean what words here do. Maybe he'll even trot out the old, "Two countries divided by a common tongue" line, haw.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 05:48 (twenty years ago)

And anyway, if you haven't figured out yet just how cooked those books were, top-secret spy memos detailing the book-cooking are probably not going to help.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 05:50 (twenty years ago)

uh yeah, we had the thread.

― kingfish maximum overdrunk (Kingfish), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 05:53 (twenty years ago)

this pretty fantastic flyer seems to think there's an important distinction to be made between "minutes" and "memo"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 08:18 (twenty years ago)

i know it's practically impossible to read, but i don't have a link to an original, or any knowledge of who made this

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 08:20 (twenty years ago)

The story attracted some news coverage in the United States, but not much. Last month, the Chicago Tribune concluded that "the Downing Street memo story has proven to be something of a dud in the United States.

THAT'S BECAUSE IT WAS ONLY POSTED IN LITTLE FUCKING BLURBS THAT MOST PEOPLE WOULD SKIP OVER! ("MICHAEL JACKSON TRIAL COVERAGE -- Oh, by the way, here's yet another piece of evidence showing that 'intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy' -- HERE'S A FULL PAGE J.C. PENNEY'S AD BECAUSE WE'RE NOT DISCUSSING ANYTHING ELSE THAT MIGHT INFLUENCE THE PUBLIC TO OPPOSE BUSH!") Would a truly unbiased (or even liberal) media succumb to being influenced/pushed around/pressured by a conservative administration? NO.

[/rant -- sorry about preaching to choir, I'm just aggravated yet again and further compelled to promote propaganda for a truly free society]

― Ian Riese-Moraine. Sweeter than a lorry load of white Toblerones. (Eastern Mantr, Wednesday, 8 June 2005 10:50 (twenty years ago)

"I think it's a . . . profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," Sen. John Kerry told a Massachusetts audience last week. "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."

"omg wtf pwned!1!11", he then added.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

I said this already in the other thread:

While it is fairly clear that the Bush admin. cooked the evidence, this memo does little to provide new evidence of that. This is just the word of a British official, not someone inside the US Government. He doesn't necessarily have inside knowledge -- he could just be stating his opinion or parroting the general inside-the-beltway talk from the time. Meanwhile, former treasury secretary Paul O'Neil provided much more explicit evidence that the administration was looking for pretexts for Iraq, and that didn't seem to make much of a dent, so I don't know why people are getting so worked up about this memo's lack of traction.

― Hurting (Hurting), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

I don't think it's frustation that this memo alone hasn't gained traction, I think it's frustration on the level of, how much more water needs to come rushing in before the dam finally breaks, and the administration is forced to own up to at least some small sliver of its bullshit?

― rasheed wallace (rasheed wallace), Wednesday, 8 June 2005 12:03 (twenty years ago)

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