Salon on today's Bush 'n' Poodle Show: "Will anyone ask?"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Will anyone ask the president today?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/06/07/downing/index.html

Bush held a press conference last week, but no one in the White House press corps bothered to ask him about the memo then. Reporters will probably get another chance to ask today, this time with Blair sitting right there in the room, too. They can even get paid for asking. Democrats.com has posted a $1,000 reward for any reporter who gets Bush to give a "yes or no" answer to the question, "In July 2002, did you and your administration 'fix' the intelligence and facts about non-existent Iraqi WMD's and ties to terrorism -- which were disputed by U.S. intelligence officials -- to sell your decision to invade Iraq to Congress, the American people, and the world -- as quoted in the Downing Street Minutes?" Hell, they'll get a hundred bucks if they just ask the question without getting an answer.

On "Meet the Press" over the weekend, Tim Russert actually worked up the nerve to ask Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman about what Russert called -- oddly, given the lack of media attention -- that "now famous Downing Street memo." Although Blair's office hasn't ever disputed the authenticity of the memo, Mehlman said: "Tim, that report has been discredited by everyone else who's looked at it." Mehlman then ticked off a list of investigating bodies that didn't have access to the memo -- the 9/11 Commission, the Senate, "whoever's looked at this" -- and said that they've all concluded that "there was no effort to change the intelligence at all." He added: "The fact is that the intelligence of this country, the intelligence of Britain, the intelligence of the United Nations, the intelligence all over the world said that there were weapons of mass destruction present in Iraq. We knew that Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction before. We still know that there was a weapons of mass destruction program."

Of course, that intelligence wasn't anything like what administration officials made it out to be, a point on which Russert gave Mehlman a pass. But Russert did call the Republican chairman on his claim that the Downing Street memo had been "discredited" -- a fact that just isn't fact. Russert said: "I don't believe that the authenticity of this report has been discredited." Mehlman went right back to his talking points: "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."

What neither Russert nor Mehlman mentioned: The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence put off until after the presidential election its plan to examine the Bush administration's role in shaping intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war. Now that Bush has won a second term and his own hand-picked commission has exonerated the White House of any responsibility for fixing intelligence, the Republican who controls the Senate committee, Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, has declared that any further investigation into what the White House did to sell the war would be a "monumental waste of time." So far, at least, it seems that the White House press corps agrees.

-- Tim Grieve

(08:55 EDT, June 7, 2005)

[cthrumatrix]

1. IF nobody asks now..... then we are no better than the former Soviet Union

agency (TAS).

They KNOW it's coming....they will have a choreographed response. The question is...will the press "not let a BS answer suffice"?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

2. Yes, if there's a question at all...

...it will be an orchestrated question followed by an orchestrated response.

Bush doesn't handle these things well. When Karl Rove or Karen Hughes give him a script and tell him to read it verbatim, I think he WANTS to ad-lib. He struggles with the words, he stutters, he pauses, and then gets belligerent.

I'm a little annoyed by the fact that this afternoon's dog & pony show will be "must-see TV," but it will.

[MessiahRp]

3. His response will be the same as Mehlman's was on MTP

"This memo has been thoroughly discredited by every one who has looked at it."

I know it's BS but it's what he'll say and quickly move on.

They coordinate their responses... no reason to believe that Chimp's reply won't be exactly the same.

Rp

[quaoar]

6. I agree

That's why the question needs to be reworded to assume it as fact.

I'd ask it like this:

"Mr. President, the Downing Street memo is prompting some in Congress to call for an inquiry into whether you lied to Congress when you said you had not yet decided to go to war with Iraq. Had you, in fact, made up your mind to go to war at the time that memo was written?"

[Al-CIAda]

7. Good call...and the corpogandist press will let it stand. n/t

[Catfight]

4. And we keep chasing the ever changing reality tricks of repugs.

What would be really good is to start a real investigation into 9/11, one in which the public demands an open under oath Bush explanation without the aid of Cheney on his side to actually tell the truth. How about that for starters? The memo could then be included, as well as a viable explanation as to why the August 3rd memo "Osma bin Laden determined to attack within the US," be addressed in a serious manner. The fact is, they'll claim discrediting anything, however, until we actually get together some sort of investigation that isn't appointed by the lead evil doer himself, it's pointless and a waste of time.

[DemBeans]

5. maybe this one will ask...

(actual MSNBC screen capture)