Kinsley’s Sloppy Downing Street Whitewash
Kinsley’s Sloppy Downing Street Whitewash
On the Washington Post Op-Ed page this morning, Michael Kinsley — an editor at the LA Times — dismisses the controversy over the Downing Street Minutes as the product of an “overhang of extremists” in “the blogosphere.”
Kinsley discounts the Minutes because they were based on meetings by the head of British foreign intelligence (known as C) “in Washington.” As a result, the Minutes recount the conclusions of “people other than Bush” and aren’t worth our attention. But even Kinsley admits that C may have been meeting with “actual administration decision makers.” (Why would the head of British foreign intelligence brief Tony Blair — as Kinsley suggests is likely — about meetings with “freelance chatterboxes”?)
If “actual administration decision makers” were telling the head of British intelligence in July 2002 that war in Iraq was inevitable and the “intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” isn’t that an important story? Shouldn’t the media and Congress investigate?
Stay tuned for Kinsley’s “debunking” of the latest evidence.
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Judd,
The link goes to the Pincus article, not Kinsley.
June 12th, 2005 at 10:19 amThanks, the right article is up there now.
June 12th, 2005 at 10:25 amI really respect Michael Kinsley. If he doesn’t think there is any there there, I need to give this whole issue a second look.
June 12th, 2005 at 10:26 amIf the war in Iraq is illegal, when it’s over, does that mean there will be an illegal peace? Illegal peace is Verboten.
How about ‘peace crimes’ if there is an illegal peace?
Fix the facts to achieve an illegal peace, please.
The ‘Peace Train’ by Cat Stevens is an ilegal song, too.
Let’s get about 40 posts so susan can copy and paste them all and post them.
I’m all for an illegal peace, even if it is a crime.
June 12th, 2005 at 10:42 amI read Mr Kinsley’s article in this morning’s Baltimore Sun. Opinions are like a**holes, everybody has one. Mr. Kinsley’s opinions seemed to lean right of center, which is OK, but its wrong when that clouds his objectivity. How can one person determine what the subcribers will be exposed to as newsworthy? How can one person censure a free press?
I suspect that Mr. Kinsley would rather avoid the Karl Rove thug call the next day than conduct an investigation and report the findings somewhere in the paper before page 10-23.
It will take some backbone to stand-up to this regime and turn it back to return democracy. I guess we can count Mr. Kinsley out.
June 12th, 2005 at 11:11 amThat’s going to be the centrist’s and liberal hawk’s spin: “Well, everyone knew it. What’s the big deal?” Pitifully weak. If that’s all he’s got, I hope for his sake someone plugs the leaks.
June 12th, 2005 at 11:17 amWell, Hell, let’s get it out in the open and find out what kind of country we are. Let’s look at the fact that a trusted British envoy meets with “somebody” in Washington.
That envoy returns to Britain and writes a memo stating that Bush has already decided to go to war.
The memo is going to the hierarchy of the British government, for use in deciding what role Britain will play in the upcoming war. It contains no cautions as to the status of the Americans who provided the information, as you would expect if the envoy had any qualms about the authoritativeness of the info,
That memo talks about the facts and intelligence being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam from power.
Another leaked memo produced by the Cabinet Office on July 21, 2002 and given to British Ministers (and Blair) prior to an official meeting, says that “US views of international law vary from that of the UK and the international community. Regime change per se is not a proper basis for military action under international law.” [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1648758_2,00.html]
The latest leaked memo also indicates that members of the British leadership were concerned that the US was not adequately preparing for the aftermath of the war.
Our experience has been that the major justifications given by Bush and his administration for the war in Iraq were not true.
Once the war began, we did not have enough troops to adequately guard the known stockpiles of munitions in Iraq, many of which were looted.
During the insurgency, many American troops and Iraqis have been killed and injured by munitions of the same type that have been looted from these stockpiles.
Once the war began, and to this date, we do not have enough troops to seal off Iraq’s borders to prevent additional insurgents from entering the country.
Now how do we, as a country, feel about this?
If a majority of Americans can look at this and say they approve, then the country is behind the President and that’s that for now.
If a majority of Americans can look at this and say this is wrong, then Mr. bush has no mandate for his actions and people should protest as long and as loudly as possible.
If a majority of Americans can look at this and say this is a breach of the oath of office, then we have a Constitutional crisis.
June 12th, 2005 at 11:36 amIt doesns’t matter what a majority of Americans think. That part of the question was answered last November. Now, we are in the stage where the Congress has the ball. The rules of the game – the Constitution – require an impeachment hearing to begin now. So, let’s see if the Congress will follow those rules. (Hint: Don’t hold your breath.)
June 12th, 2005 at 11:51 amThis war pays big bucks. Don’t expect it to end at all. The public outcry be damned.
The American populace elected George into office. They get what they deserve. What they get may not be what they wanted, but that will be too bad. Unintended consequences are always a big surprise.
June 12th, 2005 at 12:01 pmYeah Ron, just look at the unintended consequences of invading Iraq…
June 12th, 2005 at 12:41 pmSomething is up with Kinsey… he came on the Al Franken Show and said that he was in SUPPORT OF the nuclear option. He thought that liberals shouldn’t protect the filibuster.
Something is up with him. He has become completely suspect in my book.
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June 12th, 2005 at 7:41 pmThe ongoing demise of Kinsley’s relevance is demonstrated by the fact that he isn’t even identified as the former Editor-in-Chief of SLATE. Looks like Kinsley has found a relatively harmless little niche over at the LA Times, where he can pretend to bring some East-coast ‘objectivity.”
“East-coast media objectivity” – that would be ‘reporters’ standing a dozen deep on Justice Dept. steps to get Ken Starr’s latest leaked “stain on Monica’s blue dress” briefing, while IGNORING the AL QAIDA planned attacks on US Embassies in Africa….
The only real story here is which former Democrat is a bigger, sleazier sellout: Chris Mathews, Tim Russert, George Stephanopolous, or Kinsley…
June 12th, 2005 at 7:51 pmYou’re being too tough on Kinsley. I urge you to reread the piece with a cold eye. He’s saying (sort of) that if impeachment is the aim, the DSM will wound the Administration but won’t cut the head off the serpent. All the more reason to investigate this and have a full public airing.
June 12th, 2005 at 8:56 pmThe L.A. Times is owned by the Chicago Tribune who endorsed Bushie for President.
June 12th, 2005 at 9:10 pmI haven’t read the Tribune since.
Nor do I plan to in the future.
Until the Downing Street Memo was leaked, the evidence that Bush sold the war on false pretenses was circumstantial. The war was supposedly to deprive Saddam of WMD, but there were no WMD. Bush’s statements about uranium from Africa, aluminum tubes for centrifuges, mobile biological weapons labs, and UAV strikes were wrong, and obviously lies. But the evidence of deceit remained circumstantial until the Downing Street Memo came out. Now we have direct evidence that “the facts and intelligence were being fixed around the policy.” Direct evidence from the British cabinet that the Bush administration was cooking the books. I don’t care what Michael Kinsey says — the new evidence is damning.
Jim
June 13th, 2005 at 3:12 amI don’t think it matter anymore what people like Kinsgley opine, in their typically, cynical attitudes. The Downing Strret leaks are beginning to hit small town newspapers and those folks have some opinions to. It is not looking good for Chimpy. While most of us political junkies have known Bush was lying from day one, there are those among us who need to see proof. They are seeing it.
June 13th, 2005 at 8:33 amKinsley is an ass. Somehow he’s convinced Beltway and media types that he’s some kind of genius, but any time he talks about economics, tax law, or technology it immediately becomes obvious that he doesn’t know wtf he’s talking about.
In this case he proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yes, many of us suspected the Bushies had plotted a war all along. Yes, many of us assumed the facts were being fixed. That we were being rushed into an unnecessary, not to mention illegal and destabilizing, war. But there’s a world of difference between all the media Kool Kids “knowing” it (and not having the balls to say the emperor has no clothes) and unimpeachable evidence from a key player that this was in fact the case. Just remember this bit of wank the next time you read Kinsley.
June 13th, 2005 at 9:14 amHi, Karl? Can you make the cheque out to Kinsley? Thats K I N S L E Y. Thanks Karl, give my best to President Cheney.
June 13th, 2005 at 11:16 amSome one called tim rushert a dem. sellout. He was never a dem. Actual on air quote on election night.
June 13th, 2005 at 1:12 pm“if we can WE take ohio WE will have won the whitehouse”
I wrote him a note and said the problem was that the story wasn’t covered. What ever he thinks of the memo isn’t it up to the readers to decide? But how can they if he doesn’t print it?
And I love the argument that the press know that we were going to war already so it isn’t news.
Right.
June 13th, 2005 at 3:08 pmKinsley is certainly to the right of center and to the right of most americans although he is not a RW conservative. What’s sad is that the “liberal media” at CNN portrayed Kinsley as “from the left.” Just goes to show where the media bias is.
June 13th, 2005 at 3:34 pmIt takes just afew to get to the real truth. And the truth will come. Remember Nixon????? He will be known as a saint compared to Bush that took us to war by lies.
June 13th, 2005 at 3:39 pmKinsley, like many of his brother pundits, thinks it sounds streetwise AND solomonic to tsk-tsk and split hairs in Bush’s favor, using the “so what, WE knew it all; only you nebbishes were rooked, and anyway it looks pretty cool to see the military playing a game for us gamesters to parse for you zeroes.”
The vanity of these pretentious columnists is way off the charts. There are so many of them now, that the ‘eating club’, Ivy League chumminess of the whole mess is obvious, and the participants must compete for the best invitations and audiences. This celebrity, plus the money, makes them pompous as all hell, even when they try to be so cool. Fire them all, and read only straight news–either that or let us have a strong and aggressive advocacy journalism that can get the rescals out of office for good (forever).
June 13th, 2005 at 8:45 pmIf Kinsley wants to pull little quotes out of the memo, and say they’re vague about whether Bush had decided to go to war, I’ll pull out this one:
“It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.”
Does Kinsley think it’s vague who made this seem clear? Was it freelance journalists, as he suggests? Let’s look at the three sentences directly before that quote:
“The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun ’spikes of activity’ [referring to U.S. bombinh in - AND OUTSIDE OF - the no-fly zone] to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections. The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. ”
The memo obviously implies this info came from high up administration officials.
June 14th, 2005 at 3:02 amI find it amazing that Kinsley was too much of a coward to run that piece in the newspaper where he is the opinion editor and instead runs it in a more conservative paper on the opposite side of the country.
June 14th, 2005 at 4:18 amI read the Kinsley article and have heard him speak occasionally. If he writes like he talks, I think he intended irony as if to say “Why are people upset only now about what was so obviously being staged by the Bush Administration?”. The run-up to the war simply was not provocatively covered based on what we knew then about Bush, let alone Iraq.
June 14th, 2005 at 5:43 amkinsley is usually more astute than this and spent enough time as trb in washington to know what level the head of mi-6 would meet. fyi: the head of mi-6 is like the heads of cia+dia+nsa rolled into 1 person. he doesn’t talk to anybody lower than equivalent levels in the usg. this person got that pre-war information from the most senior levels of the usg, i.e. principals and/or their deputies.
we have to remember that iraq was an aggressive war which makes bushco war criminals of the first order. if congress doesn’t initiate impeachment hearings, then sooner or later after this crowd is out of office, some other country will have the courage to issue international arrest warrants for them as war criminals. that crime has no statute of limitations or geographic limitations.
btw: i thought the latimes was owned by the times mirror company. must have missed the latest media consolidation.
June 14th, 2005 at 10:54 amAnd how does Mr. Kinsley account for the fact that the memo has caused such a storm in the United Kingdom? Does he think the Brits are just too volatile and emotional?
Funny that the statements in the memo are causing a scandal in the country of the person who described the American government’s commitment to war, but is getting pooh-poohed in the country that actually was committed to war.
June 14th, 2005 at 1:19 pmKinsley is long past his Best Before date, a wimp who was picked to be on Crossfire because he is a jounalistic capon (that’s gelding for you Triple Crown fans). He’s not worth the attention.
The Downing Street Memo is an authentic account of a discussion among the Blair Government’s top security people. None of them has ever denied its authenticity or its significance.
The US media have tried their best to ignore the Memo, and, when that became impossible, to muddy the waters so that Americans will think thee is some question about the document. As usual, the Republicans have only had to contribute the occasional Official Quote to set the tone — Kinsley & Co. will do the rest.
The 1700 US dead, the 14,000 US injured (paralyzed, legless, emasculated, etc.), the 100,000 Iraqi dead, the tens of thousands of Iraqi injured, the destruction of Iraq’s economy and infrastructure, the breach of international law, the waste of $275 billion, the massive deficit — all these effects flow from the transactions mentioned in the DSM.
It would all be so much easier if some likely young lady would entice Bush into an Oval Office blow job, and tell her Best Friend about it so it can hit the media. Sex is so much easier to understand than Memos and casualties, so much more fun to cover, and so much more meaningful to a nation of Family Values Christians.
Monica, come back — we need another impeachment!
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October 21st, 2005 at 9:31 am