Asleep at the Wheel

For your viewing pleasure, Delusions of Grandeur Players presents…

Hide the Truth! (or How to Not Report Something for Years and Then Tell Everyone that It’s Old News)

Bush (in secret): I’m going to invade Iraq.

Bush (in public): I don’t want to invade Iraq.

Press: Bush really doesn’t want to invade Iraq.

Press: Look at all these WMD!

Press: Bush is trying to get Saddam to disarm peacefully.

Press: Bush the peacemaker, a monument of courage, is standing up to the terrorists wherever they may be.

Bush: I don’t want to go to the UN.

Press: Bush wants to go to the UN.

Press: Powell’s presentation at the UN was brilliant and frightening. We will all die if we don’t invade Iraq.

Bush: Unfortunately, we must invade Iraq.

Press: Bush, the reluctant warrior is forced to invade Iraq.

Press: Check out the size of Bush’s package in that flight suit.

Bush: We found WMD!

Press: We found WMD!

Press: There are no WMD.

United Kingdom: Bush made the decision to go to war long, long ago, and made up a whole bunch of shit to make sure it would happen.

*crickets chirping*

Press: Ah… we all knew that. Hey! Look at Michael Jackson, what a freak!! Oh, and this missing white girl. What’s that? Tom Cruise is getting married? Drugs were found in the car of… A shooting on the… Star Wars grossed… Lindsey Lohan’s dog was… Olsen Twins were…

And... Scene!

Thank you! Thank you! Try the veal…

Yep. This is the world we inhabit, friends. This sad, pathetic world where Tom Cruise proposing to his beard makes the front page, but Bush lying to get us into an increasingly deadly war is relegated to the back pages and editorials. Joe Conason explores in detail the gaping chasm between what reporters said then and what they’re now saying they said.

They tell us the memo wasn't news because everybody understood that George W. Bush had decided to wage war many months before the United States and its allies invaded Iraq. The memo wasn't news because anyone who didn't comprehend that reality back then has come to realize the unhappy facts during the three ensuing years. The memo wasn't news because Americans already knew that the Bush administration was "fixing the intelligence and facts around the policy," rather than making policy that reflected the intelligence and the facts about Iraq.

Only a very special brand of arrogance would permit any employee of the New York Times, which brought us the mythmaking of Judith Miller, to insist that new documentary evidence of "intelligence fixing" about Saddam's arsenal is no longer news. The same goes for the Washington Post, which featured phony administration claims about Iraq's weapons on Page 1 while burying the skeptical stories that proved correct.
...

A classified document recording deliberations by the highest officials of our most important ally over the decision to wage war is always news. A document that shows those officials believed the justification for war was "thin" and that the intelligence was being "fixed" is always news. A document that indicates the president was misleading the world about his determination to wage war only as a last resort is always news.

Yes, I knew that Bush was planning to go to war all along. My buddy, Emeryroolz knew. Joe Conason probably knew. The Times and Post editors probably knew. But clearly, the majority of American people didn’t know, at least not the 51% of people who voted for him, right? Would they have voted for a lying warmonger? Maybe some. But not 51%. I haven’t become cynical enough to believe that just yet. So, now that it’s more than those of us who read the news putting two and two together – now that we have evidence from the highest echelon of the British government that Bush was lying and fabricating evidence – shouldn’t these reporters be, oh I don’t know, reporting on it? They don’t think so. Joe thinks so. Thank you, Joe.

Exhibit 959 in People v. Lazy, Lazy Mainstream Media