Keep Dancing

Over at Hullabaloo, Digby catches Fox News in a classic media failure two-step, doing a story on why there's been so little coverage of the Downing Street Memo (without of course ever wondering if their own lack of coverage of the issue might be at all connected). Surprisingly, she seems to treat this as an isolated incident rather than recognizing it for the organizing principle of modern media that it is.

Anyway, in case you missed it, the Downing St. Memo is written evidence - from over half a year before the invasion of Iraq actually occurred - which makes it look like the Bush administration had plans to go to war in Iraq and to say they had to because of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction and that everything which happened between then and the outbreak of war was part of a pre-planned campaign in which the truth of the claims underlying going to war were irrelevant aside from providing a public basis for the invasion.

Unsurprisingly, people are wondering why the media would rather provide endless coverage of Michael Jackson and runaway brides than talk about how the President and his aides deliberately misled the American public to get them to support going to war.

On the one hand, I could be charitable to the media and say that this isn't really news because everyone who opposed the war already pretty much figured this is what happened and everybody who supported the war either figured the same or didn't really care enough to pay attention. So the fact that there is now some written evidence isn't going to affect what anyone thinks¹.

But on the other hand, I'm guessing that if there was new written evidence supporting the allegations which have been made against Michael Jackson, the media would have provided blanket, inescapably-thorough coverage so I think what we are looking at here is simply an (even more egregious than usual) failure of the media to cover what is actually a pretty big story which could be very damaging to the President. Somewhat odd behavior for a 'liberal' media which is out to get the Republicans.


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¹The fact that this second group is large enough that Bush was re-elected helps explain why people around the world (including in the U.S.) are getting increasingly nervous that America is looking to carve their own unique path down the well worn slope on which civilizations have slid from relative stability and peace into crisis.

What He Said

James Bow has up a two-part series of posts, the first on why we need to disengage from the middle-east (we're not helping) and the second on how (use less oil).

Needless to say, his posts are a lot more illuminating than my 3 word summaries so I recommend you read them for yourself if you haven't already done so.

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If you have any interest in reading a personal story which documents some of the changes in the newspaper business in B.C. over the last couple of decades, I recommend this post from View From Seymour.

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Finally, for a humourous but disturbing comparison of David Horowitz's 'Students for Academic Freedom' organization with a previous campaign for academic freedom, see Billmon's post on the topic (via Voice in the Wilderness).

This and That

Over at Polspy, Sean asked the question, "Is it possible to be a Conservative and an environmentalist at the same time, or are the two mutually exclusive?" and got some interesting (and some silly) replies.

My favourite came from Ray who said,

"Of course it is possible to be conservative and an environmentalist, as easily is it is to be conservative and gay, though Scott Brison might disagree with me. ...

[big chunk omitted - go read his comment in full] ...

Grizzlies are in an endangered state, eagles are being butchered for cash, but the single most contentious issues in Ottawa are whether or not gays will be allowed to marry or whether Canada will support a program it is already in to help the Americans shoot rockets that don't fly to defend us against missiles that don't exist.

It's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong."

My personal opinion, as I commented, is that if we're talking big C Conservative (i.e. the political party not the philosopy) then it is possible, but they sure aren't making it easy.

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Meanwhile, at Crooked Timber, John Quiggin has a thoughtful post up on the general trend towards democracy over the last 50 years and how the invasion of Iraq may have impacted it.

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And finally, something I was not only slow in posting about, I was even slow in linking to Pogge when he posted about, was a pair of columns in the Toronto Star by Thomas Walkom about the erosion of civil liberties and the privacy of our information in this post 9/11 security legislation environment. Both are worth a read, unless you prefer to remain in a good mood, in which case give them a pass.

Hypothetical Question for the Day

What happens if the democratically elected Iraqi government decides it wants to evict the U.S. army and close off the country to American bases / troop movement?

Random Thought for the Day

I ran across this article on Yahoo about the (very commendable) reductions in Iraq's debt load, which have been spearheaded by the U.S.

And I couldn't help wondering about the human benefits which could be achieved if the U.S. were to devote the same political will towards forgiveness of the debts of all the destitute countries around the world.

I imagine the citizens of the poorest countries, where the money which goes to debt repayment dwarfs spending on health care, fighting aids, etc, must be wondering, as I am, why it's possible to achieve such massive reductions in Iraq's debt, but progress is so painfully slow (or nonexistent) everywhere else.

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Edited to add that if you want to get some background on this issue, the Jubilee USA network is a good source, the news links down the right side of their homepage provide a pretty good background of recent developments on this issue.