The story about the Tony Blair memo which was broken by the London Times days ago (I posted this about the story on Monday, May 9 and I found it through RawStory which referenced the letter from 88 members of Congress to the President that was dated May 5) but CNN is just getting around to posting it here on May 11 at 7:36 p.m (2336 GMT).
The story was broken by the London Times on May 1! That’s a ten day lag, and CNN added no original reporting to their story. When I think of all the possible explanations for this I can only come up with these (followed by reaction):
- They didn’t feel the story was newsworthy — And the Runaway Bride was?
- They needed time to fact-check — 10 days? Who’s doing the checking, a tortoise?
- They wanted to flesh out the story — Where’s the beef?
The headline for this story appeared as the first item in "More News" on CNN’s home page; the second headline was "Culkin: Jackson ‘never’ molested me."
Adios CNN.
***Update***
As of 12:50 a.m. on May 12 I can’t find any mention of this story on the New York Times site, USA Today’s site or the Washington Post site. Maybe I’m tired and not looking in the right places, but I can’t even find a sentence in their politics section.
Is this really not a story? Written proof that the Prime Minister of Great Britain and his team stated that the US and Britain had to "create" the conditions to justify a war. This isn’t a story?
Let’s look at it his way: President Bush’s best international buddy, his staunchest ally, is essentially admitting to conspiring with the President’s team to "create" conditions to sell the war to the American and British public (not to mention Parliament, Congress and the UN). Then 88 (89?) members of congress sent a letter to the President asking him to explain his position. In their letter they highlight these points from the leaked document reported by the London Times:
- Prime Minister Tony Blair chaired a July 2002 meeting, at which he discussed military
options, having already committed himself to supporting President Bush’s plans for
invading Iraq.
- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw acknowledged that the case for war was “thin” as
“Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that
of Libya, North Korea, or Iran.”
- A separate secret briefing for the meeting said that Britain and America had to “create”
conditions to justify a war.
- A British official “reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible
shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But
the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”
Which leads the members of Congress to ask these very relevant questions:
- Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
- Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain’s commitment to invade prior to this time? Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought
Congressional authorization go to war?
- Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with
the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
- At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to
invade Iraq?
- Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British
officials to “fix” the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document
states?
Granted all of these members of Congress have political motivations for asking these questions, but I ask again, "How is this not a story worthy of at least ‘National’ page or ‘Washington’ page coverage in the major media outlets?"
CNN isn’t the only "negligible" source in this case.
Befuddled 