Joe Conason chimes in on the media handling of the DSM:
Leave it to the Beltway herd, with their special brand of arrogance, to insist that the Downing Street memo wasn't news.
A classified document recording deliberations by the highest officials of our most important ally over the decision to wage war is always news. A document that shows those officials believed the justification for war was "thin" and that the intelligence was being "fixed" is always news. A document that indicates the president was misleading the world about his determination to wage war only as a last resort is always news.
And when such a document is leaked, whatever editors, reporters and producers may think "everyone" already knows or believes about its contents emphatically does not affect whether that piece of paper is news. The journalists' job is to determine whether it is authentic and then to probe into its circumstances and meaning. There are many questions still to be answered about the Downing Street memo, but the nation's most prominent journalists still aren't asking them.
When you finish reading that, keep going and read David Paul Kuhn's related article on yesterday's basement meeting, "Just Hearsay, or the New Watergate Tapes?".
The Democratic representatives attending the forum said they believed if such information had gotten out prior to the war, neither the House nor the Senate would have supported the Oct. 11, 2002, congressional vote giving the president the power to order the invasion.
To the Democrats taking turns to speak at the forum on Thursday, the memo was tantamount to the first word of tapes in the Nixon White House during the Watergate scandal. Impeachment was on these representatives' minds as four longtime critics of the war in Iraq, including former Ambassador Joe Wilson, repeatedly urged Congress to hold an official inquiry into the validity and origins of the Downing Street memo.
"They tried to shut us out," Conyers said after the hearing. "They tried to cut us off. They put us in a tiny room. The significance shouldn't be lost on anybody."
No, it shouldn't.
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