Damn MSNBC, Olbermann & Matthews!

[Pryderi]

I'm sorry, but I've been watching their coverage of the Libby trial and they keep making comments about the motive for Libby's lying.

They keep saying Libby lied to protect Cheney for manipulating and cherry-picking picking intelligence in order to lie us into invading Iraq, BUT THEY REFUSE TO MAKE MENTION OF THE DOWNING STREET DOCUMENTS!!!!

WHY DON'T THEY EVER BRING IT UP??? I would think that the Libby trial and conviction and talking about the lying us into war would be a perfect time to bring up the DSM!

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action."

Libby is merely a wisp of smoke coming from the barrel of the Downing Street Memo! ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! I'm sick of MSNBC nibbling around the edges and not feasting with gusto!

[aquart]

1. The MSM does not recognize the DSM.

[Pryderi]

2. Well, by God, maybe Henry Waxman, Plame or John Conyers will make mention of it at some

f#cking point and the media will cover it then.

[Berry Cool]

3. Nothing may have been said lately

but Countdown was discussing the Downing Street Documents way, way back in the summer of 2005. I clearly remember it. So please, enough with this business about how the "MSM" never talks about them.

[karynnj]

5. Countdown was one of the few shows that did on there own

I also heard John Kerry bring it up on many shows in spring 2005 - but there was no independent coverage to provide backup and support to what he was saying.

[karynnj]

4. Because mentioning the DSM doesn't fit their current storyline

They have been saying that the Democrats will not investigate how we got into the war, because they voted for it. This is wrong on many levels.

- In 2004, there was a committment that the Democrats insisted on to investigate both if the intelligence was wrong and whether the Bush administration intentionally manipulated it. The Democratic leadership agreed that the second part should be finished and released after the election.
- In Spring 2005, John Kerry and 9 other Senators demanded this be done in a letter to Senator Roberts, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee. This letter and Kerry's comments on talk shows of the time explained the significance of the DSM. Roberts wrote Kerry that they had already looked into this enough.
- Later, Senator Reid, took the Senate into closed session to demand there be an investigation of the pre-war intelligence manipulation.
- On the House side, the Democrats held hearings in the basement - because none were held by the Republicans in control. They had no supoena power.

When the Senate and House were not under our control that was all we could do officially. In the media, there were some big Democratic voices that could have spoken out and didn't. Bill Clinton, a year after they were out, claimed not to know anything about them. (Dean, like Kerry spoke out. To my knowledge, Hillary, Edwards and Obama didn't - though I would love to be corrected on this.)

The media did a poor to fair job on this. There were occasional articles in MSM, including the NYT, that contained enough information to see that the Bush administration would have created a crisis to attack Iraq. (Notably an idea was floated to shoot down a UN marked plane over Iraq.) But, the coverage on this was miniscule compared to the Britney/Jessica Simpson etc nonsense dominating our "news".

So, some Democrats clearly wanted the issue of manipulating the intelligence out. I am glad that they are addressing the issue of changing policy first - it is more important. After that, we need to push them to insist, that even though it is 5 years ago, they need to address this - because Bush supverted the government.

[Pryderi]

6. I disagree. The DSM *does* fit the storyline and Matthews keeps dancing around talking about

rigging the case for war in terms of the Libby trial. Then he throws up his hands saying "we'll never know" even though he says he wants answers.

If he was really interested in knowing, or wanted some answers, he'd start talking about the DSM in detail and interview people as part of the larger issue of lying us into war.

[karynnj]

7. You misunderstood me

Of course the DSM are a huge piece of the puzzle in seeing how we were railroaded into this war. It should logicaly follow the Libby stuff because it is connected.

What I said was it it did not fit the MSM'sstoryline. I do suspect that Matthews and any number of talking heads are smart enough to see this because it is very very obvious. So, my conclusion is that the MSM is playing completely dumb.

What we don't know is how far the conspiracy went. We know Blair and Bush were involved. In the US, we know Cheney, Wolkawitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Feith, and Libby. (and likely many others). In Britain, we know most of Blair's Labor party was against it - but it couldn't have just been Blair. What about the opposition parties in Britain and the US? Could the reason that we are hearing reletively little agitation for investigation here be that there were some Democrats involved? It still bothers me that Kerry could only get a forth of the Democrats to sign. (If they didn't like Kerry, the Democrats could have had a different letter.)

[Pryderi]

8. Oh Ok. I see what you're saying. I'm just frustrated.

[karynnj]

9. Who isn't?

Listen to the last couple interviews Kerry has given (on johnkerry.com). He is clearly frustrated that the Bush administration did not take advantage of the ISG and start to resolve this. Reality is pretty awful here.