Steve Soto pulls his hair out at
The Left Coaster in a post called
The "We All Knew This" Defense
As a follow-up to Marie's great piece below, I've become as jaded as anyone at how the media has ditched their integrity with this administration, as compared to their "turn the dogs loose" mentality the previous eight years. I, like many others, wonder why it is an affront to the chattering classes inside the Beltway and a matter worthy of vulture-like attack that a president stupidly had sexual relations with an intern on his staff, yet the confirmation that Bush surreptitiously led us to an irreversible war only warrants a "we knew this already" from the same Beltway types, even though there is a dearth of media stories to this effect from 2002 and early 2003.
more...
Steve continues:
Again, for the Post and the Times to credibly take the attitude that there is nothing new here, shouldn't there be evidence that these same paragons of the media ran a rash of stories telling us in 2002 and early 2003 that Bush's UN efforts and his public comments were all lies and that he was going to invade no matter what? Funny, I don't remember those stories.
If the notion that the press corps all knew something was a reason not to report on an issue, how did Monica Lewinsky ever become news? Let's face it; back in the day we all knew that President Clinton was a hound dog who liked the ladies. Didn't stop the media frenzy, did it? Nope. In fact, Drudge made his bones when the rumors he published of Monica's blue dress were proven true. Well now the rumors that BushCo invented reasons to attack Iraq and manipulated the American people's understanding of the intelligence have been proven true.
So maybe Milllbank and his buddies need to go in the wayback machine and remind themselves of why the fact of the blue dress was news. Because it was proof. Maybe that will help them reach the next obvious conclusion:
The Downing Street Memo is the New Blue Dress.
And we all know what that conclusion led to.
