it's funny being here, in an overtly political convention, and yet be semi-cut off from actual day-to-day politics. i'm not really cut off. as i mentioned, there's wifi here and so i can check all the usual sites. but i got other stuff to do, so i'm not checking them that often. mostly i'm just peeking in to find out if the world blew up or anything like that.
it hasn't.
and, like before, no one gives a shit about the mounting evidence that bush lied to the american public to start the iraq war. just a few weeks ago the downing street memo became public with nary a peep in the american press. even as it provided even more definitive evidence that bush had decided to invade iraq at the same time that he was publicly denying it (one month after the memo was written, bush and rumsfeld chastised the media for creating a "frenzy" about alleged plans for an iraqi invasion). yesterday, the times of london reported that, at the same time the downing street memo was written and bush was publicly denying that he had made any decision on iraq, british and american planes bombed iraq in an attempt to goad saddam into giving them an excuse to invade.
it wasn't all that long ago that lying was an impeachable offense, if not an excuse to have it as the lead story in all major media outlets for long after the story had any new information to drive it. how much things have changed. these days the american media is almost completely ignoring the mounting evidence that bush lied to the american people about a war that continues to take a terrible toll on both americans and iraqis. it's especially odd because now a clear majority of americans now think that the war was not worth it. this position can no longer be said to be the ravings of the fringe. thinking the war was a blunder is well within the mainstream. and yet, the u.s. press is not showing much interest in even exploring where this credibility gap comes from. indeed, it's revealing that both the downing street memo and the increased bombing runs in 2002 were reported in british, not american, publications.
because the war is not getting the critical treatment it deserves, the bush administration can still get away with this bullshit: rewarding the people who gave the bush administration the information they wanted to hear to justify their invasion plan. it's really outrageous. even bush apologists these days claim that intelligence analysts are to blame for "misleading" bush. who in their right mind would reward the very people who fed the american people the bogus information? and this isn't even the first time this has happened.
i realize i've ranted about iraq a lot over the years. i guess these things lose their impact after a while. but that doesn't make it less outrageous. stepping back a bit this weekend has reminded me of that. i just thought it's time to bang my little drum on this issue again
