06.30.05
06.29.05
Caption This Photo #29
06.24.05
Programming Note: Gone Fishing
I’m probably not going to be fishing while I’m on vacation for a week, but instead of surfing the internet over the next seven days, I will be boogey-boarding my way around some red-state waves.
I think it will be good for me, in the end, to get away from the computer for a bit — while a monitor tan is hot, nothing beats the real thing.
While I’m gone, The Tattered Coat will be in power-save mode. It won’t be completely dark, however: I’ve prepared seven “Caption This Photo” posts for your captioning pleasure. I’ve got some good pictures lined up, so be sure to check in from time to time — I hope to find some funny lines in my inbox when I get back.
I’ve also set up a few open threads in case you feel like starting your own conversation or linking to some of your own blog posts. Share the love.
If you want to keep track of The Downing Street Memo in the coming week, you can turn to these excellent sources of information:
The Downing Street Memo
After Downing Street
Big Brass Alliance
Awaken the Media
Shakespeare’s Sister
Pam’s House Blend
The Heretik
Agitprop
For general entertainment and enlightenment, you can turn to these fine purveyors of blog wisdom, whose sites I have very much enjoyed as of late:
Lance Mannion
Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
Feministe
CJR Daily
1115.org
Crooks and Liars
Jesus’ General
And for Philly news and views, of course, you can do no better than to turn to Philly Future, and to some of the wonderful sites listed on this blog’s sidebar (I don’t want to pick favorites among my brothers and sisters — they’re all good!).
I hope that everybody has a good week. I will miss you.
06.24.05
The Downing Street Memo Has Legs
A number of Downing Street Memo links for your Friday reading pleasure:
Jefferson Morley, The Washington Post: Why the Mainstream Media Is Catching On
But an increasing number of news editors are recognizing the newsworthiness of the DSM story. Newsday , the New York tabloid, picked up the AP story. The Houston Chronicle published DSM excerpts this week. So did the San Francisco Chronicle. The editors of the Detroit Free Press say the DSM story is “too significant to be dismissed as simply old news — as the White House would like — or left to historians.”
Dick Cheney calls the DSM wrong, even though he hasn’t read it: Cheney: Iraq will be ‘enormous success story’
“Remember what happened after the supposed memo was written. We went to the United Nations. We got a unanimous vote out of the Security Council for a resolution calling on Saddam Hussein to come clean,” he said.
“The president of the United States took advantage of every possibility to try to resolve this without having to use military force. It wasn’t possible in this case.”
Warren Strobel of Knight Ridder Newspapers speaks about the DSM on Philadelphia’s Daily News podcast, Philly Feed (direct link). As one of the hosts, Eric Mayberry says, “It seems like the Downing Street thing has legs.”
Here is a partial transcript (all errors are mine, but I think I got it straight)
Warren Strobel: They are the real thing. . . Neither the British nor the U.S. government has challenged the authenticity of these documents. . .
To me, it’s pretty clear that it shows that the Bush administration had made a fairly fundamental decision as early as March 2002 that it was going to get rid of Saddam and probably do that by invading Iraq. . . the effort to go through the United Nations is not really an effort to find a peaceful solution or a way out of an invasion, but it’s a way to gather international support. In other words, they were hoping that Saddam would stiff the United Nations, would refuse inspections, and that would give them an excuse and would build international support for an invasion. So, you look through this and you don’t find any real discussion of other options, other than war.
Frank Burgos (host): So it seems like they came to the conclusion we’re going to go to war . . . and then find the reasons to justify it?
WS: Yeah, I think that’s accurate. . . another thing that’s interesting to me, and I’ve reported on some of these issues . . . there’s great concern on the British side after these senior British officials have gone to Washington and met with senior Bush administration officials, there’s great concern that the Bush administration has not — is not — preparing or planning sufficiently for the aftermath of an invasion. Most people would now agree, I think that there was not sufficient planning done for what would happen after Saddam fell, and that has led to some of the problems we see today.
[snip]
W.S. [on criticism of the MSM by liberal blogosphere] It’s one of my first encounters with the blogosphere, and the power it has. I think all of us in the media are getting just tons of emails, mostly from the liberal blogs, urging us to look into this more, to report about it, etc. etc. So it shows that the blogosphere has a real impact. Obviously, they don’t drive our coverage, but they certainly can get things on the agenda.
[snip]
W.S. [The memo says that] military action was now seen as inevitable, but the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy, seeming to indicate that the Bush Administration early in 2002 was trying to manipulate intelligence, or form the intelligence to justify a decision for war.
I think that’s news.
We have to keep up the pressure on the Bush administration to answer these memos. As long as soldiers are dying for the administration’s lies, the build-up to war is not “old news.”
Strobel’s comments show that groups like the Big Brass Alliance and Awaken the Media are having a real effect.
But until we get some real answers, we will not — we can not — relent.
