Michael Smith, the British Reporter who acquired the DSM and other war cabinet documents, is the best thing happening today in journalism, other than perhaps Seymour Hersh. In an on-line chat on the Washington Post, he explains very s-l-o-w-l-y and s-i-m-p-l-y, so maybe even the New York Times can understand,
why the DSM is such an important story:
Washington, D.C.: To what do you attribute the seeming lack of interest by the American public and main stream media, at least initially, in the revelations contained in the Downing Street Memo?
Michael Smith: Firstly, I think the leaks were regarded as politically motivated. Secondly there was a feeling of well we said that way back when. Then of course as the pressure mounted from the outside, there was a defensive attitude. "We have said this before, if you the reader didn't listen well what can we do", seemed to be the attitude. I don't know if you have this expression over there, but we say someone "wants to have their cake and eat it". That's what that response reeks of. Either it was politically motivated and therefore not true or it was published before by the U.S. newspapers and was true, it can't be both can it?
The attitude they have taken is just flat wrong, to borrow an expression from the White House spokesman on the Downing St Memo.
It is one thing for the New York Times or The Washington Post to say that we were being told that the intelligence was being fixed by sources inside the CIA or Pentagon or the NSC and quite another to have documentary confirmation in the form of the minutes of a key meeting with the Prime Minister's office. Think of it this way, all the key players were there. This was the equivalent of an NSC meeting, with the President, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, George Tenet, and Tommy Franks all there. They say the evidence against Saddam Hussein is thin, the Brits think regime change is illegal under international law so we are going to have to go to the U.N. to get an ultimatum, not as a way of averting war but as an excuse to make the war legal, and oh by the way we aren't preparing for what happens after and no-one has the faintest idea what Iraq will be like after a war. Not reportable, are you kidding me?
One point I would make though, everyone keeps saying it is continually making waves over here. We at the Sunday Times are not going to let it go but no-one else is interested in the U.K. press. The Washington Post came to it late but look at everything it is doing now. Ignore today's silly editorial article. The Post is now working away at this and I know they are planning to try to do more on it. Sadly there is no sign of the New York Times changing its sniffy we told you this already view!
Smith is right. The Post has put Walter Pincus, one of its best reporters, on the story, and has been front-paging his major scoops. The New York Times, on the other hand, seems too confused about the best way to exonerate Bush to say anything meaningful on this subject.
Read the Post on this one. Smith says he's expecting good things out of them, and I'm willing to go with his view on that one.