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Wash Post Distorts Level Of Congressional Interest in Downing Street Memo

In today’s Washington Post, Dana Milbank attempts to dismiss concerns about the Downing Street Minutes as the ravings of fringe conspiracy theorists. A sample of Milbank’s coverage of the hearings:

Conyers’s firm hand on the gavel could not prevent something of a free-for-all; at one point, a former State Department worker rose from the audience to propose criminal charges against Bush officials. Early in the hearing, somebody accidentally turned off the lights; later, a witness knocked down a flag. Matters were even worse at Democratic headquarters, where the C-SPAN feed ended after just an hour, causing the activists to groan and one to shout “Conspiracy!”

To bolster his point, Milbank tries to create the impression that Rep. John Conyers is the only member of Congress who is paying attention to the controversy:

A search of the congressional record yesterday found that of the 535 members of Congress, only one — Conyers — had mentioned the memo on the floor of either chamber. House Democratic leaders did not join in Conyers’s session…

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What Milbank doesn’t mention is that 121 other members of Congress — including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — have signed Conyers’s letter demanding President Bush answer questions about the Downing Street Minutes.

Maybe the media should spend less time mocking the Downing Street minutes and more time covering them.

UPDATE: John Conyers wrote a letter to the Post in response.