Well, my local newspaper finally ran a front page story about the DSM. I started to read it with excitement ! Finally !!!! But then- well- you tell me what you think so my letter to the editor will be stronger- I think I need help on this one. Keep in mind that this newspaper has been rated as one of the top 10 in the country and is independently owned and operated, with a small investigative staff of reporters.

http://stpetetimes.com/2005/06/26/Worldand..._grows_in.shtml

British memo grows in mythology, if not in media

Among antiwar advocates, the Downing Street Memo has caused an uproar. Among the media, it reads like old news.

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Published June 26, 2005


It's actually the minutes of a meeting, not a "memo." And among hundreds of words, just 10 jump out.

But apart from the steadily rising body count in Iraq, few things have so galvanized American antiwar sentiment as the so-called Downing Street Memo.

Disclosed May 1 by London's Sunday Times, the memo outlines a meeting July 23, 2002, at the residence of British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The head of British intelligence, fresh from talks in Washington, tells Blair that President Bush is determined to remove Saddam Hussein and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Dated nine months before the invasion, the memo quickly became big news in Britain, where critics said it proved Bush planned to go to war regardless of whether Hussein truly posed a threat. The furor hurt Blair, the president's staunchest ally, and contributed to the poorer-than-expected showing of the Labor Party in the May 5 British elections.

On this side of the Atlantic, though, the Downing Street Memo hit with a poof, not a bang. Most news organizations all but ignored it, to the outrage of readers and bloggers who have swamped the St. Petersburg Times and other media with demands for greater coverage.

The memo "is a smoking gun - this is our Watergate," says Clay Colson, a community activist in Pasco County. "I read it, and when I showed it to a very diverse group of friends, the one thing on everybody's tongue was, "Why wasn't this on the front page of the newspaper?' "

Is the memo really proof that Bush deceived the country into going to war, as Colson and others say? Or has its significance been exaggerated, as many in the media counter?

Michael Kinsley is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and generally a harsh critic of the president. Yet he demurred on the memo, saying the British intelligence chief offered no specifics.

"Nor does the memo assert that actual decisionmakers had told him they were fixing the facts," Kinsley wrote. "Although the prose is not exactly crystalline, it seems to be saying only that "Washington' had reached that conclusion. And of course Washington had done so. You don't need a secret memo to know this."

The Downing Street Memo is certainly one piece of evidence the White House decided on war before verifying Iraq's weapons capabilities or purported ties to al-Qaida. But by the time the memo become public, what it purports to reveal had been revealed elsewhere, again and again and again - bestselling books as well as articles in major U.S. newspapers and magazines showed the administration had been intent on war.

Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked about "getting rid of" Hussein, according to the Price of Loyalty by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind.

"Imagine what the region would look like without Saddam and with a regime that's aligned with U.S. interests," Rumsfeld told the National Security Council two weeks after Bush took office in January 2001. "It would demonstrate what U.S. policy is all about."

Just eight days after the Sept. 11 hijackings, a front page story in the New York Times reported that some administration officials were "pressing for the earliest and broadest military campaign" against not only al-Qaida in Afghanistan but "but also against other suspected terrorist bases in Iraq."

In his book Bush at War, Bob Woodward gave more details of the September 2001 war summit at Camp David: Even if Iraq couldn't be linked to Sept. 11, it posed an easier target than mountainous Afghanistan, Rumsfeld and others argued. According to Woodward, the president eventually tired of the debate and chose to focus on Afghanistan for the present.

Over the next several months, however, Bush and top aides made frequent public statements implying Hussein was tied to the September attacks, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups - contrary to intelligence reports.

In February 2002, the New York Times revealed that the CIA "found no evidence Iraq has engaged in terrorist operations against the United States in nearly a decade." The agency was "also convinced Hussein has not provided chemical or biological weapons to al-Qaida or related terrorist groups."

The extent to which the administration veered from facts and intelligence in making the case for war was detailed in the New Republic in June 2003, three months after the invasion.

Based on interviews with intelligence officials and other experts, the magazine found that the Bush administration "culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not."

Among many examples the magazine cited were efforts to convince Congress and the United Nations that Hussein was trying to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. In his January 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush said Iraq had tried to buy "significant quantities" of uranium from Niger. The president's claim was based on a document that already had been proven a forgery, the New Republic said.

A week later, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. Security Council that Iraq also was trying to acquire aluminum tubes for gas centrifuges, used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. But several experts - including some in Powell's own department - had concluded the tubes were the wrong type for a nuclear program and instead were intended for use in conventional rockets.

"Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002 . . . it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam," the magazine said.

In July 2003, a political firestorm erupted in the form of a New York Times op-ed piece by Joseph C. Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador in Africa. Wilson disclosed he had gone to Niger at the CIA's request to investigate Hussein's purported uranium purchase.

After meeting with "dozens of people," Wilson told the State Department and the CIA that it would have been "exceedingly difficult" for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Thus he was surprised to hear Bush repeat the claim in his State of the Union speech.

"Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war," Wilson wrote, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

The piece drew massive attention, particularly after columnist Robert D. Novak revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent who had recommended her husband for the Niger mission. The disclosure of her identity, which was classified, led to an ongoing investigation into who leaked her name.

Given the publicity over the Wilson bombshell and other examples of the administration's resolve to attack Iraq, the Downing Street Memo didn't stir as much interest in the United States as it did in Britain, where it was leaked in the closing days of a heated election campaign.

It wasn't until after a June 7 press conference, at which Bush and Blair denied intelligence had been "fixed," that the issue got substantial play from major U.S. news organizations.

The St. Petersburg Times first mentioned the memo in a June 3 story about protesters who gathered outside a Tampa TV station to draw attention to it. The paper also ran a story last week about an unofficial hearing on the memo organized by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.

The hearing, held in a basement room and boycotted by Republicans, ended with calls for a congressional inquiry into whether Bush should be impeached for misleading the nation.

"We didn't do much with the memo because a lot of what was in the memo was material we had already reported on, either using wire stories out of Washington or with our own staff," says Stephen Buckley, the Times' managing editor.

"It just didn't strike us as offering a lot of dramatically new information - it seemed to confirm things that we had already put in the newspaper."

Lakshmi Chaudhry, co-author of the 2003 book The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, acknowledges there was "a lot of good reporting" in U.S. papers leading up to the war. The problem, she says, is that stories questioning the evidence often ran inside, while stories in which the White House pushed its case with little Democratic opposition got front-page play.

News organizations are starting to cover the Downing Street Memo now because Conyers and other Democrats have made an issue of it, Chaudhry says.

"I think it re-emphasizes the point about how the media responds to what the political establishment is doing. Since the Democratic Party leadership has decided to take a much stronger stance on Downing Street, Guantanamo and other issues . . . within the Bush White House, that precisely is why there is more coverage."

It could also be that editors are reacting to the torrent of e-mails, letters and phone calls from readers convinced the media aren't doing enough on the memo and a related document. That one, a British briefing paper leaked this month, says that Blair and Bush had decided to go to war by early 2002 but that "it was necessary to create the conditions" that would make it legal.

Activists seeking greater coverage of the leaked documents are extremely well-organized. They have a Web site - www.downingstreetmemo.com - that includes a daily "target" list of editors to call this month. Friday's targets: the Detroit News, San Antonio Express News and Reno Gazette-Journal.

"We were just incredulous that nobody in the U.S. was picking up on this," says Gina Fesmire, a Sunnyvale, Calif., Web designer who started the site with a Chicago area law student and a Canadian government employee. "The documents speak for themselves - the public needs to know about them."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 26, 2005, 00:35:56]

First response:
They need to remember that the media does not equal the public. What's old news to media insiders is new news to the public. Don't steal their "A ha!" moment.

Another thing - the girl missing in Aruba is old news, Laci Peterson was old news - and still we hear about these day in and day out. What gives. They don't say, "The missing girl in Aruba is old news to the media." Why take that spin on the DSM?



This bit above shines a little light on the situation for me. It seems their motivation is to maintain their good reputation. They don't want to stick their neck too far out on the line. They admit that when people call and write letters to the editor it makes a difference. They're playing to public opinion.



How many stories did they run on Michael Jackson and Laci Peterson? I don't read this paper so I don't know. Seems the media could care less if there's no new information to report on so long as it fits two criteria: 1) It's sensational and 2) It's non-controversial.

Seems to me they're looking to the public for clues that the public is ready to hear this news.

I often have asked myself, mths ago, just how many corrupt and criminal acts will it take to bring real justice against this BushCon regime. How many times have we seen evidence and investigations swept under the rug? There's tons of it under that rug where it will more than likely stay, until after apporx 20 yrs, until then some start writing books about the 'truth' which means nothing at that point.

I had thought prior to the elections, if only the 9/11 investigations would take hold and the victim's families would hang BushCo high for their neglegence, or their connections to the 9/11 event. Just like the DSM, 9/11 simply has become moot, just like the fraud election II. If 9/11 could at least come to the fore, proving such connections with the BushCons prior to 9/11, then the Afghan war would be illegal as well.

Then, it came to my mind Pie, right before the fraud elections, that what if.... what if we found a way to DEMAND ALL Christian based churches to answer hard facts of such corruption of their beloved BushCo regime? See my point? The very religious fiber of this nation that backed Bush and Cheney should now answer to the cold hard facts of what this regime has brought us into. The failing economy, the inflation, the bankruptcies, the foreclosures, the lost jobs, the outsourced jobs, the open borders and illegal aliens, the wars, the national deficit, the trade deficits, and all the lies and scandals in between..including the 9/11 investigations and the DSM. The death, the injured, and the destruction in the Middle East on both sides ... and how much closer we are to more wars and possible nuclear destruction!

How about you write to your paper listing all that has failed in America and the corruption that this regime has brought to us, and demand answers from all the churches of this country! Shouldn't priests, preachers and ministers, etc etc, answer about what this regime has done and continues to do? Each church should write an open letter to all of us Americans and their congregation explaining where they stand on all such issues and if they see it as right or wrong? If we can get these ministers to either support or condem BushCo in the open and to the public, then their own congregation will decide to support that church, or not, based on their minister's answers. I think if we can put these churches in the hot seat, since THEY supported and promoted their Bushie Boy, even after the first 4 yrs of nonsense, then they sure the hell should answer to us all about what they think about EVERYTHING being swept under the rug! Why should ministers get off the hook as if that's now yesterday news.... so we should get over it. NO... we shouldn't get over it. Our demise is still coming thanks to BushCo!

The govt has no conscience... and letters mean nothing to them. The church is supposed to have a conscience, and that's where (newspaper) letters should be directed demanding answers about the actions of those the church has supported for 4-5 yrs. Maybe we all should write our local papers demanding that our newspapers demand answers and comments from all these local churches about everything that's going on under BushCo.

Ministers always has something to preach about... so why not allow them to offer their explainations about all the evidence on BushCo and this failing society? Force these questions on those churches so to stir the Big Corp Neocon pot!

Good luck with your editorial letter with whatever you decide to write about Pie.

Pie,

First consider the voice of the letter. Although it alludes to the Kinsley editorial in the L.A. Times (which would make you think the paper was going to be critical,) it gives an overall balanced perspective. It's nothing like Milbank's apologia in the Post.

My thoughts are, and have been since May 1st when it came out in The Times of London, as long as it stays in the press it will continue to feed upon itself. The fact that the SP Times is quoting a critique about a critique written in another paper about something written in still another paper from a foreign country is evidence that it is feeding upon itself. If you do a Google even for today's hits on DSM, there are hundreds of thousands. Even when Hannity and Novak try to trash and thrash it, there it is.

It's like some people can look at a piece of burnt toast and only a piece of burnt toast, but someone will see the Virgin Mary. Then once that thought enters your mind, you can see it, too, then everyone sees it. Well, in that same way, too many in America have seen the President's War in those Minutes. I would suspect that the visions seen in the DSM's are among the reasons support for the war has headed south in the last 6 weeks.

I would take the high road. Their coverage, while it is belated, does summarize clearly most sides of the argument. You might suggest they continue expanding their coverage with additional investigations on their part. You might suggest they look into some of the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau essays, editorials, and investigative reports; suggest they begin filing Freedom of Information Act request on why there were 'spikes of [military] activity' in Iraq months before Congress was asked to declare war. What kind of memos did Condie, Wolfy, and Cheney write after they had their meetings with the various British actors?

But what they say doesn't mean as much as the fact that they continue saying it.

WS

Pie, here are two good discussions of the Downing Street Minutes and the media's lack of or weak response:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2556

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050624/...ore_the_war.php

See also http://www.mediamatters.org for discussions on media coverage (or lack of) and links to other web-sites.

Thank you all so much ! You have given me many good ideas to compose a clear and concise, but powerful letter to the Times. The good news is that they *DO* publish many, if not most, letters they receive. The bad news is, now I have to sit down after it is quiet around here tonight and try to write something with some punch If I get it accomplished
and it gets published, I will post it here for you to see.

Thanks again - lots of good thoughts

Thank you, thank you ! The lead letter to the editor (with a
rather good sized, prominent headline of their choice no less) is in today's SPTimes, as the result of all of us working together here on this thread. Yep, top of the page, right hand side (in the actual paper, not online link) - first reply under "Your Letters." (Winston, I lifted a whole sentence/thought directly from your post, so you are in print ) :


http://stpetetimes.com/2005/07/02/Opinion/..._updates_.shtml

Readers need updates on the news, not excuses

Letters to the Editor
Published July 2, 2005
Re: British memo grows in mythology, if not in media, by Susan Taylor Martin, June 26.

As a loyal reader of the Times for the last 40 years, I picked up Sunday's paper and said to myself: "Finally!" - you had run a front-page article on the Downing Street minutes.

While the article covered other sources of information about these revealing documents, the tone of the article was a disappointment. Is it not the job of a good newspaper to cover developing stories and new revelations about "material already reported on"? Moreover, is it not the point of good journalism to try and uncover new information about deceit on the part of the government?

Instead, this article seemed to offer excuses for the lack of coverage in the Times. Well, there is no excuse for a top-rated newspaper to assume that its readers are familiar with other sources. It is the job of such a newspaper to keep its readers informed in a timely manner.

Might I suggest, with all due respect, that the Times consider using the Freedom of Information Act to investigate why there were spikes in military action in Iraq in the months prior to Congress being asked to give the president free rein? Or to find what memos/minutes might exist within our government such as those revealed in Great Britain? Now that would be journalism worth reading.


-- xxxxxxxx, St. Petersburg


It is not my best writing for sure, as it was done in haste and anger- but I sincerely thank all of you

Well, PIE, you've done better'n me- I have yet to get a damned thing published- period!

And I love your new avatar!

Thanks, Winston. And my new avatar is symptomatic of my week-
a meltdown ! So I guess Ann Couter will now a slimy blueberry pie in her face when she steps out of line

BTW- it is one thing to get an editorial published in a relatively smallish city, another to get one published in LA. And I have never attempted a short story or a book. CT will be published, it just takes a very long time and finding the right contact to break into serious print.
You have been spending your time devoted to teaching kids who need help- a much more noble cause !