American Press reaction to the Downing Street Memos

Why did the press not react initially to the Downing street Memo that essentially state that the head of British MI6 knew in July 2002 that the Bush administration had decided on war in Iraq and was going to "fix" the intelligence to convince people to support the war?

I think the answer is that the Press felt they had already adequately documented the lies of the Bush administration, they expected more lies (like the documents that Burned CBS over Bush's failure to complete his National Guard service,) they consider documenting Bush Administration lies to be bad for the bottom line, and they expected lies out of the Blair government to match those from the Bush administration.

Americans know the nature of this administration. The Republicans in the White House lie. The Republicans in the Congress lie. They have a whole large media wing of liars and propaganda shills out there lying for them, including FOX, The American Standard, National Review and the Moonie Times. They lie blatantly, and they lie subtly. They have made a high art of ensuring that everyone in the government conforms to their lies, and they have made an equally high art of silencing and ridiculing their critics outside government. All of this is quite well-known.

It is a common game to read the transcripts of White House press conferences to see if any Reporter actually asks a newsworthy question, how Press Secretary Scott McClelland will avoid answering it, and if there is any actual followup. Those events are so rare as to be newsworthy in themselves. Scott is given extra credit for adroit lies that are more than just old ones repeated. The Press is not expected to ask followup questions since that might make the White House angry.

Of course, the Press conferences are only the beginning of the administration lies. The former chief of staff to President BushÂ’s Council on Environmental Quality, Philip Cooney, quit and went to work for Exxon-Mobil, the well-known opponent of everything related to Global Warming, two days after it was learned that he has been rewriting the governments' scientific reports to remove all conclusions that human activity led to Global Warming.

Everyone knows that the speech that Secretary of State Colin Powell made to the UN to justify the invasion of Iraq was a set of lies. There have been no doubts of its lack of honesty. The only questions have been about who was responsible for inserting the lies that Powell presented to the UN.

Recently, in the effort to get the Patriot Act provisions madepermanentt the administration has stated "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted." but the Washington Post has looked at those charges and convictions and reported "But the numbers are misleading at best.

"An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security."

These are just a very few examples. Everyone expects this administration and anyone connected to them to lie, lie, and lie some more. They have an assembly line of lies and nothing else.

So when the head of British Foreign Intelligence, MI6, is reported as saying July 23, 2002 "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. 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." the American Press had two reactions.

First what the "So? We knew that even before Congress voted to let Bush have his war." so what is the News here?

Second, the news media also realized that Blair was as deeply involved in lying to start the war as Bush was. He and his government supported and still support the Bushadministrationn and they lied and continue to lie to support the war in Iraq. Why should anything out of the Blair government be trusted any more thanmaterialn out of the Bush administration?

It is apparent that the newsmedia do not consider themselves out there to teach the public anything. They are not leaders. At best, they will ascertain what they think the public wants to know, and then try to find that out if they can do so cheaply.

So the answer to my question is that the American media did not consider the Downing Street Memo all that newsworthy because they felt it added little new to the debate, the decision to preemptively invade Iraq is old news, the sources were as likely to be out to burn the media as provide information, and they perceived no great clamor from the public to look more deeply into the allegations the DSM made. There may also have been a bit of American isolationism there, also. This was a report from outside the United States about the actions of the U.S. government. Jingoism mixes with the"Not in My Backyard" syndrome.