Mocking the Downing Street Memo

[dweller]

By Robert Parry
June 18, 2005
If American progressives think they have enough media clout to make a
real issue of George W. Bush’s possible impeachment over the Iraq War,
they should read the account of Rep. John Conyers’s rump hearing on the
Downing Street Memo that appeared in the Washington Post.

The story by political correspondent Dana Milbank drips with a sarcasm that would never
be allowed for a report on, say, a conservative gathering or on a topic involving any part of
the American political spectrum other than the Left.

“In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the
land of make-believe,” Milbank wrote. “They pretended a small conference room was the
Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them
look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the
whole think look official.”

And the insults – especially aimed at Rep. Conyers – just kept on coming. The Michigan
Democrat “banged a large wooden gavel and got the other lawmakers to call him ‘Mr.
Chairman,’” the snide article said. “Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War,” June 17, 2005]

Washington Post editors – having already dismissed the leaked British government
documents about the Iraq War as boring, irrelevant news – are now turning to the
tried-and-true tactic for silencing any remaining dissent, consigning those who won’t go
along to the political loony bin.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/061705.html

dp

[Tesla]

1. Mr Parry can.....

[rooboy]

3. What is your problem with Robert Parry? n/t

[Hissyspit]

6. He's calling MSM on their bullshit, even if you think he is too skeptical

on the impeachment issue. I'm not sure your read the whole article thoroughly.

[rodeodance]

8. yeah--I had to read the entire article to get what he was saying--rather

lame at times--but he is, as you say--calling the msm on their own **.

[Tesla]

13. My bad

reading it wrong......


Ms. Milbank can...

[Daphne08]

16. Actually, it's Mr. Milbank

the jerk. :grr:

[fasttense]

2. Over half a million signatures, which everyone knows

only represents a small portion of people who support Conyers. The Washington Post and others are just trying to continue their downward slide in circulation and sales. Keep it up boys. Soon you'll have an audience of one.

[globalvillage]

4. Write to Milbank

Mr. Milbank,

Regarding your article on the Conyers' Downing Street Minutes meeting, I have a few questions:

Why, do you think, was this hearing relegated to the basement of the Capitol, rather than in a more appropriate venue, and why won't you report that?
Why do you find it improper for our elected representatives to investigate this British government document?
Do you really think Rep Conyers should ignore the 120+ House members and over half a million citizens who signed the letter to George Bush? Do you think the President should respond to or ignore US citizens?
What do you have against the Constitution and the responsibilities of the Congress?
Is your loyalty to the United States, or just to your Washington Post paycheck?

Thank you for your time.


The Federalist Papers : No. 51

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign..."

[rodeodance]

10. someone on DU said that his full name was Milbanks.

[globalvillage]

12. Nope.

[complain jane]

5. So Milbank's a paid shill for that vortex of lunacy, the WH?

[rodeodance]

7. Perrry is right on about Milbanks (read last paragraph).

Indeed, Dana Milbank, as the Post’s White House correspondent, has drawn conservative ire from time to time for not showing sufficient respect for George W. Bush. But if Milbank were tempted to write an over-the-top attack on Bush – like he did on Conyers and the Downing Street Memo hearing – he would pay a high price from retaliating conservatives who would accuse him of bias and flood his editors with complaints.

Almost certainly, Milbank would have second thoughts about such an article or his editors would for him. Without doubt, the story would not have appeared in the openly insulting form that it did when Democrats and liberals were the target.

Though no one wants to say it, everyone in mainstream journalism knows intuitively that there is no real risk in ripping liberals. Most often, it’s a win-win. Not only can you write almost whatever you want, but it buys the journalist a measure of protection from conservatives, who have a long record of costing reporters their jobs.

Milbank, for instance, must know that his putdown of the Downing Street Memo hearing means he can wave the article in front of Bush supporters the next time they criticize something he’s written about the president.

[rodeodance]

9. he also makes a good point about Liberals not investing in their own

forms of media.

Dynamic

.......The reason for that part of the dynamic is largely that funders on the Left – unlike their counterparts on the Right – have chosen over the past three decades to divert money away from media into other priorities, such as “grassroots organizing” or direct-action projects, such as feeding the poor or buying up endangered wetlands.

Sometimes this refusal by wealthy liberals to “do media” seems so extreme that one has to wonder whether – except perhaps for some indigenous tribes in the jungles of Borneo – any group on the planet has less a grasp of the importance of information and media than American liberals do.

Even the Arabs – not usually known as information pioneers – have learned how investments in media, such as the satellite news channel al-Jazeera, can change the political dynamic of an entire region.

Though there have been a few positive developments in liberal media – particularly the growth of AM progressive talk radio at Air America and Democracy Radio – Left funders still show few signs of understanding how valuable media could be to a liberal political renaissance.......

[starroute]

18. "There is no real risk in ripping liberals"

That may be the most important sentence in the article.

We all know that conservatives are bullies who like to intimidate people and don't care who knows it, while liberals will lean over backwards to be regarded as nice guys. The sad result is that liberals invariably come across as wimps. That's one reason people here at DU are so thrilled when a conservative speaks out against the war or the Patriot Act -- not just because they're a potential ally, but because they generally say it far more forcefully than we ever could.

I'm not advocating that we imitate their bullying or vindictiveness. Even if we could bring ourselves to act that way, it wouldn't be good in the long run for either us or the country. But what we can do and must do is make them pay a price for trashing liberals. We need to call them on their slurs. We need to ridicule them mercilessly. And we need to refer back to their past idiocies whenever their names come up again. For example, can't you just see yourselves a few months from now writing something like:

"The contemptible Dana Milbank -- who surrendered any pretense of being an objective commentator through his juvenile mockery last June of this country's longest-serving member of Congress, the venerable John Conyers -- has come up with yet another bad reason for ignoring threats to our national well-being."

You can use the classic Brit style of high-toned nastiness. You can do Jon Stewart goggle-eyed incredulity. Or you can honor the late Hunter Thompson with full-on gonzo outrage. But one way or another, these cretinous earthworms really do have to pay, or we will never have an end of their bullying.

[complain jane]

27. Ethics shmethics.

[Burried News]

23. Wouldn't Krauthammer or Will Usually be the Goto Guys for This

It can't be that their journalistic standards got in the way? Jeez there's an oxymoron. Or maybe they were afraid the 76 year old Conyers would punch their lights out if they screewed with him.

[Skinner]

11. That's a good read.

I think that Parry nails it.

[Hissyspit]

14. Now on the Greatest Page. (I thought I had nominated it earlier!)

[Coexist]

15. a very good read

[bpilgrim]

28. i think we are the successors of PBS

the community driven and supported www that is.

the www phenomenon has parallels to the beginnings of PBS but is also unique so that it could very well be considered a new paradigm in its own right.

the we could certainly use more support from the top ;->

peace

[Pooka Fey]

17. Very intelligent article.

[CTyankee]

19. I have experienced this first hand with Planned Parenthood

where I worked for 6 years at the state level. Our donors would say "You are doing such good work. PP is not just about abortion. We need to get the story of all of the great things we do out there."

Unfortunately, the prevailing policy of the organization's leaders was basically that the media would only cover our side of the story if they "balanced" it with the other side. I never quite understood that policy and said so. So we just talked to ourselves in our own little world.

I just spoke with a good, liberal friend of mine about the DSMs and was surprised that she said "We all knew Bush lied." I had to give her evidence to the contrary. I was dismayed she was so defeatist.

[MasonJar]

20. Get on the Post site and "contact them." Yesterday I wrote both

Millbanks and his editors and was quite clear what I thought of their blatant misuse of space. There is no excuse for making fun of a hearing whose purpose was so significant and serious. It is classless and in very poor taste. Write them.

[longship]

21. Let's keep hammering WP/Milbank - My LTTE

Here's my LTTE contribution to the effort:

In his 17 June article, "Democrats Play House To Rally Against the War" Dana Milbank begins with the words "In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe." Apparently Mr. Milbank and the Washington Post feel that House Democrats have not suffered sufficiently; the Washington Post apparently believes that Democrats should also have to suffer Milbank's unjustified, mean-spirited attack piece. I will not dignify Milbank's bilious, bullying screed with critical analysis. Suffice it to say that others have already shown several of its facts to be demonstrably incorrect.

I am very concerned about why the Post considered this back-alley attack necessary or wise. I suspect it's to provide cover for past negligence.

If the Post had bothered to fully cover the events leading up to war with Iraq instead of acting as surrogate cheer leaders for an incompetent, bellicose administration, they would now be able to report that the Downing Street Minutes support what they had reported all along. That is, to justify a preemptive war the Bush administration may have deceived Congress, citizens, and the international community and may have "fixed the intelligence around the policy" to backup a fraudulent justification.

Instead, Milbank and the Post attempt to cover their negligence by attacking the messenger. Representative Conyers is an honorable man. He represents my thinking and that of millions of other citizens. He is doing his job. The Washington Post and Milbank owe a public apology to Rep. Conyers and the other brave House Democrats who are standing up to an out-of-control administration. The Post owes their reading public a retraction for the inaccuracies in Milbank's article.


Sincerely yours,

It would be nice to see some sort of retraction.

On edit: I sent this to Ombudsman, Milbank, and LTTE.

[old blue]

24. We should point out that House *Republicans* took the hearing seriously

House republicans certainly did not take the hearing as lightly as Milbank, as they thought it necessary to schedule 11 floor votes during the hearing. That can only mean that they're scared of the DSM.

[longship]

25. I agree.

But as I wrote, I didn't want to dignify Milbank's article by responding to it directly.

[old blue]

26. You wrote a very good letter, by the way

[PATRICK]

22. The MSM stance

seems impatient that the GOP lite agenda they all want for stability and corporate conservatism to cynically reign supreme in both parties and globally, is not slickly and cynically professional enough of a salable mirage.

They scorn the poor drapery of the liberals who dare to question the agenda and for the greater popular success and activism they are having.

The Olympian hauteur and scorn hides fear. Hides wrath that the balance is so skewed the slickery and propriety is slipping as the masks fall off. This is a MSM with its pants down complaining about room decor.

Millbank should be laughed into the Potomac.

[Catrina]

29. He complained

about room decor because they have adapted a childlike, bullying technique of attempting to demean, mock, humiliate those they disagree with. Much like the tacktics used at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

I happen to think he got his foolish, cowardly little head handed to him this week. Maybe next time he shouldn't believe his handlers on the right about that liberals are weak. I guess he learned the hard way, that the only reason that false image was allowed to fester for so long is that liberals were ignoring them, so beneath contempt were they and their mouthpieces.

But, ignoring bullies never works, they need to be taken on and smashed, not difficult to do, since they are usually, as Milbank has so beautifully demonstrated, cowards. His whining, 'people say mean things to me so therefore I am being mean' response, is exactly what can be expected from these kinds of cowards.

The post should have published Conyer's letter, but they were too cowardly to do so.

Most of all, Milbank and his paper, insulted the families of dead soldiers who were at that hearing and the rally afterwards. For that alone, and the pain their ignorant dismissal of their concerns caused, they owe a public apology.

I hope Cindy Sheehan gets a chance to tell Milbank how she feels about being called a 'wingnut playing dressup'. I hope he never loses a loved one, but if he does, I would hope that none of the 'wingnuts playing dressup' who attended that hearing would ever behave towards him, the way he did towards them. They are heroes, all of them.

His unAmerican behavior towards those military families was shameful!