Thursday, June 02, 2005
McGovern misses the point
The US media needs a modern-day "Deep Throat" within the administration of President George W. Bush to reveal how America was "misled" on Iraq, former presidential contender George McGovern said.
Huh? There are literally hundreds of Deep Throat "wannabes" in the federal government, particularly at the CIA and State Department. These two agencies in particular -- but not exclusively -- have been waging a war of leaks against Bush's Iraq policy since long before the war began. Indeed, their anti-war campaign has been so effective in undermining support for Bush's policy that it is received wisdom in liberal circles that the Bush Administration did not merely err in its intelligence estimates, but lied so that it could conquer Iraq for the purpose of capturing the oil and killing off the one Arab regime that remained a threat to Israel. There is no story that a new Deep Throat might tell that would add anything new to the debate -- that is why, for instance, the Downing Street Memo has evoked essentially no interest even in the mainstream media.
The Iraq war is contentious precisely because people substantially agree on the underlying facts. The real arguments have been over differing perceptions of risk in the post 9/11 world and the propriety and -- in some cases -- effectiveness of actions that the Bush administration took to address the risks it perceived. These arguments all reflect differences in values, rather than facts, and cannot be resolved by a new "Deep Throat" or even the dozens of much more direct leakers that have collaborated with the Washington press corps and the political opponents of the Bush administration.
2 Comments:
By 
Gordon Smith, at
Thu Jun 02, 11:17:00 PM:
Hawk,
As someone whose most distinct memory of the early seventies is Captain Kirk kissing Lieutenant Uhura, I've been unfascinated with Deep Felt.
I've been more fascinated by the nostalgia with which the national press has reported the story. Ah, the salad days, when we were relevant and powerful. It's embarrassing to watch disillusioned journalists pine for the good old days when someone would tell them truth, ache for the days when they would have been allowed to report any truth they find. It's a surrender of sorts to a future of partisan infotainment.
But that's not what I'm here to comment about.
The national press hasn't reported on the Downing St. Memo in a way anything close to what Mr. Felt is receiving. The press are interpreting Deep Felt, but they won't take the time to interpret this memo's significance.
If nothing else, the memo is historical in that it is a record of the run-up to the Iraq War. Fox's reportage is best expressed by a post from Digby, "Yesterday I mentioned the fact that that FoxNews had the incredible chutzpah to discuss openly why nobody is reporting the Downing Street Memo --- without actually reporting on the Downing St memo."
And, when one couples it with Paul O'Neill's memo, it's intriguing to wonder if George W. Bush intended to invade Iraq long before he entered the office of President. This is where investigative reporting comes in. Not to judge or steer, but simply to report the facts as they emerge.
Thanks for reading my awfully long comment, and thanks for being one of my favorite sites.
By TigerHawk, at
Fri Jun 03, 06:50:00 AM:
Screwy,
Of course the Bush administration intended to invade Iraq from at least the "Axis of Evil" speech, in the sense that it wanted to take out Saddam Hussein from the get-go. After 9/11, and certainly after Afghanistan, the Bush administration set about making the case that the Ba'athists had to go. The question is, what does it mean for the president and his staff to intend to go to war? It does not mean that the war is inevitable, but it means that they will advocate for it. Nobody in their right mind would think that the Bush administration was engaged in open-minded deliberation that led them, however reluctantly, to a judgment that they needed to invade Iraq. That judgment was easy to form even after 9/11 even though, as the left is fond of pointing out, there were de minimus demonstrable ties between Saddam and al Qaeda.
The Downing Street Memo isn't news, really, because it doesn't reveal anything that everybody who thinks for a minute doesn't already know. It got a lot of coverage in England for two reasons. First, it is an artifact of the British election campaign. Indeed, had the Downing Street Memo been published last September, you can bet that the media here would have given it a lot of focus. Second, it plays in England to the opposition argument that Blair is Bush 43's poodle, and I think you agree that the press like's nothing more than "evidence" that fits neatly into an theme it has been pushing.
