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Here are some notable recent posts about The Downing Street Memo and other hot-button issues of the moment:

Crooks and Liars has the video of RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman’s Sunday appearance on Meet the Press. This is a must-see, and would form the basis of a sick drinking game (take a swig every time he says “I would respectfully disagree…”). Then try using that line with your spouse during an argument some time.

Adriana Huffington provides a scathing follow-up, labeling Meet the Press host Tim Russert “E-ZPass Russert” because he let Mehlman “distort, twist, manipulate, obfuscate and ‘disassemble’ his way through every stop on the disinformation highway.”

The New York Review of Books provides a typically well-researched historical overview of the build-up to the Iraq War in light of The Downing Street Memo. If you want to cut to the chase, check out this summary of the article in Seeing the Forest.

One great quote that Seeing the Forest misses:

Thus, the idea of UN inspectors was introduced not as a means to avoid war, as President Bush repeatedly assured Americans, but as a means to make war possible. War had been decided on; the problem under discussion here was how to make, in the prime minister’s words, “the political context …right.” The “political strategy”—at the center of which, as with the Americans, was weapons of mass destruction, for “it was the regime that was producing the WMD”—must be strong enough to give “the military plan the space to work.” Which is to say, once the allies were victorious the war would justify itself. The demand that Iraq accept UN inspectors, especially if refused, could form the political bridge by which the allies could reach their goal: “regime change” through “military action.”

It was a smart, morally bankrupt plan, and it worked. But, as Danner points out, it built upon the media strategies of Joseph Goebbels, who advised would-be fascists to “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

The MSM is beginning to cover The Downing Street Memo — the pressure is beginning to work:

AfterDowningStreet.org Co-Founder Steve Cobble on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal

Bush Lies Should Get Him Tossed Out (The Capital Times, June 3, 2005)

Protest Draws Attention to Memo (St. Petersburgh Times, June 4, 2005)

Administration’s Offenses Impeachable (Bangor Daily News, Maine, June 3, 2005)

Two brave bloggers, Freiheit und Wissen and The Heretik, are running Big Brass Alliance Blogswarms. If you write about The Downing Street Memo, make sure you drop them a line.

Left of Centrist showcases a new protest song from Country Joe McDonald.

The Liberal Avenger urges us to support Amnesty International as the Bush Administration attempts to smear its good name (via Rowhouse Logic). Of course, Bush was only too happy to use AI’s information during the build-up to the war in Iraq.

And finally, Jesus’ General reminds us that when it’s time to put up or shut up, the chickenhawks shut up.