If the American media won't report on Blair memo, does the memo exist?

In my experience of the last two weeks, trying to get the media to report on the Blair memo is like trying to get a fundamentalist Christian to report on a contradiction in the Bible. They do not seem to be able to see the memo for what it is: incontrovertible evidence that the "case" for the Iraq war was manufactured once it was clear that the war was going to happen, and that this is evidence of a gross abuse of power.

It seems to me that the media will only sit up and take notice if a dramatic event of some kind forces them to notice. Tens of thousands of letters arriving in their post office and e-mail boxes don't seem to be doing the trick. If demonstrations against the war before the war meant nothing to them, demonstrations now will mean even less (witness the May 1 demonstration, which garnered even less attention than the Blair memo!).

The letter from the Representatives in Congress is an admirable attempt to create a media event. If the media weren't so uninterested in (or outright contemptuous of) Democrats in the House (especially African American and progressive Democrats), it might have worked.

Would it work if even one high profile Democrat in the Senate made a similar statement? Should we turn our attention away, in other words, from the useless toadies in the media and put pressure on one high profile Democrat--John Kerry, maybe? Or Bill Clinton?--to make a statement somehow that would ensure the media would hear it?

I've been running candidates for this statement through my mind and thinking many of the most popular ones among DUers--Barbara Boxer, Dennis Kucinich, Michael Moore, Robert Byrd--the whole out and out anti-war contingent--have been marginalized by the media, turned into cardboard figures relevant only to left. I don't think any of them could make enough of an broad-hitting impact outside of the left, which is what is absolutely necessary for this to gain momentum. I am not sure even Howard Dean could do it.

I am wondering if the only one who could possibly do it would be Bill Clinton. He's about the only Democrat that the media have any interest in (except for Hillary). I wonder if a campaign to make Bill say something about the memo would be more effective than a campaign to make the media develop an instant conscience. I'm not entirely convinced that Clinton would even agree, seeing as how he campaigned for Blair and has been cozying up to the Bushes of late. But just imagine if he did suddenly appear on Larry King sometime in the next week or so, and said something memorable about the memo. That would make news, wouldn't it?

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US--have covered it here and there--but what is it that prevents the broadcast media from covering it?

They're all entertainment all the time. They're only interested in spectacle. It doesn't surprise me that they're not covering it.

Now if Bill Clinton said something that bugged Republicans about it, THEN the electronic media would notice.

To me its more of a scandal that the newspapers haven't said more about it, even when they're clearly getting it from the left on this.

about would be valid. And yes, President Bill Clinton would be stellar. Barring that, how about every dem we have? :shrug: There's hesitation among the pols and the media, and I don't understand why.

move them. Maybe the Big Dog would.

I'm trying to think of a way to move the process along faster, concentrating our energies on one high-potency solution to the problem of getting the media to move their asses on this. It would seem most effective if a LOT of people wrote to Bill Clinton (or someone in particular) to ask them to represent us to the media, to make our case to the media. He doesn't have to say "It's time to cut the Bushit," or "Buck Fush." All he has to do is say he's been getting an enoirmous amount of correspondence asking why Blair was hurt by the memo and Bush hasn't been touched when it's just as damning for Bush (if not more) than for Blair. And to add that he thinks its a good question. That would get the media buzzing. It might inspire more Democrats to ask the same kinds of questions.

Plea to our partners in crime on DU to inundate Clinton's office regarding "the memo". An e-mail addy would help, and voila! I will kick!

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/contact.php

I'm looking at the site, and I'm realizing that there's nothing on it about peace. There's nothing on it about transparency of government and power to the people. It's a typically Clintonian enterprise: grand-seeming, bland-being. But there is a box to contact them, and what if thousands of us suddenly flooded it with a demand--or a request--to have our concerns aired. We could, perhaps, try to appeal to Clinton's righteous anger at the way he was treated by the media--not to spur him into an "If they did it to me, why don't they do it to him?" kind of place, but to remind him of how low the media has sunk, how far it has fallen from doing its job and informing the democracy.

I don't get why this illegal treaty isn't getting people arrested.

Might as well be the blair witch, er, wait, that got more press.

-Hoot

This is the biggest story of the Bush presidency and they are just sitting there. At least they are still keeping track of the Runaway Bride!

B. Clinton backed Blair and is buds with Poppy Bush. There is no way that he or Hillary will ever say anything that is negative about W or the Bush Junta.

On top of that, he is not the most courageous, far-thinking figure in America. Expecting that he would say anything on his own is totally unrealistic.

But what if he were inundated with communications from people imploring him for help. Would he turn his back? He might. But maybe it is worth the effort to try to convince him that this is the correct course of action for him to take.

He is liable to say--or think--that an accusation such as this is of a piece with the partisan sniping that brought us impeachment in 1998. Like a lot of "centrist" Democrats, he seems to put a lot of stock in "being above it all" and "being better than the Republicans." (Although before the election he made more than a few rebel yells that resonated with me.) But this is not about partisanship, fuindamentally. The Republicans want to make it look like partisanship. It is actually about the health of the democracy as a whole. Everything about Bush is an affront to the health of the democracy as a whole. But this way we got into the war is the epitome of it: the illegitimate means to an illegitimate war by an illegitimate president. He must pay for it, or all nature will remain out of balance.

They're too dim to figure it out for themselves.

Funny, when Bernstein and Woodward investigated Watergate, they did the work that brought it out into the light. They didn't sit on their asses waiting for a Congressman to make a statement.

But this lot is utterly useless unless someone pulls their thumbs out of their asses for them and dictates what they need to write about.

The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'. --George Orwell's 1984

the media along with your complaint.

The MSM is the memory hole.

are arriving in their post office and email boxes. I've spoken to a lot of people and noone has even heared about the memo!!

As to the validity off the memo.. check out these links in the UK press

discusses reaction by PM about the leak
---- http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/page2067.asp
BBC reaction----http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontp...
Some additional discussion in the British press leading up to the release
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontp...

The memo was published on May 1, IT'S BEEN 10 DAYS! and I am so sick and tired of the media ignoring this. I think all of us in the DU community need to do a media blast together. Think about it, if 70,000 people email the MSM everyday for the next week maybe they'll get the message. I have access to a media list that can be used.

But I have to say, even on DU I have noticed that the members that are raising this issue, don't seem to get an overwhelming response from the Du-ers either.

from 2000. But your second one (I tihnk you've cut'n'pasted from somewher else in DU - the '...' is separated from the link, so it doesn't work) does show the PM's reaction. Here's the good link to it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4503061.stm