The Downing St Memo, Red Meat, and Howard Dean

[Stinky The Clown]

There are a number of posts asking why Howie didn't bring up the Downing Street memo. I watched all of Fat Timmy Potato Head's yak fest this morning. I have some thoughts on this.

I am also of a mind that the Downing Street memo has the potential, like nothing before, to be a smoking gun. I want it plastered wall to wall everywhere anyone who is capable of breathing can see it.

Now, with that aside, here's my take on today's interview with Howard Dean .......

We here on DU are waaaaaaaay ahead of the curve when it comes to matters such as the Downing Street memo. Our opinions are formed earlier than the great unwashed masses because we're informed earlier than the great unwashed masses. We're more interested in the arcane and vague. We're more perpetually angry about such matters than are the great unwashed masses.

We want blood and we want it now. Spilling from the White House and from RNC headquarters.

We LOVE to gnaw on red meat.

But the reality is, one must handle a hot, smoking gun VERY carefully. Assume any smoking gun is still loaded. Assume that smoking gun, if handled improperly, could put one hell of a big hole in the handler's foot ....... or head.

So here's my posture on all this:

Let Howie and Company do what they need to do. Let our leadership do what it needs to do. Give them the space to set things in motion. Recognize that, with no power to start a fucking thing in the halls of government, we need to hold ourselves in check. That red meat will taste all the better when its a victory dinner.

I'd love nothing more than to see someone like Howie go on the fat Timmy Comedy Hour and rail about it. I'd love to see snarls and screams about it.

But that's not the way things work. Howie's been in the job 100 days. I'm more than willing to give him the space he needs. I have faith. Mixed with healthy and honest skepticism, but faith to be sure.

[RBHam]

1. The space he needs?

Is that before or after the next BushCo terrorist attack on America?

Before or after Martial Law is declared and your friends and neighbors are rounded up and sent to internment camps?

[Stinky The Clown]

10. Consider this:

Howard Dean (live on national teevee): Bush Lied and People Died. Bush did, exactly, X, Y, and Z.

Fat Timmy (feigning incredulity): Governor Dean, surely you have proof for such seemingly outrageous and incendiary remarks against our prayzident! Surely, sir, you have complete proof when you call the Prayzident a liar on *my* show, sir?

Howard Dean (now in full throat, red meat, song): You're damn right I do, Tim. Right here. (holds up memo).

Fat Timmy (now showing a hint of a smirk on his bloated lips): But Governor, that's a transcript. You don't have the actual memo, do you?

Howard Dean (still on full-out red meat mode): Tim, its right here. This is what the British told ....

Fat Timmy (interrupting and speaking louder): Governor, surely there's corroboration for this ..... this ..... (sneering)'text', is there not?

Howard Dean: Tim, we have th ....

Fat Timmy: Do you, sir, have a person who will attest to this in a court of law? In the well of the House?

Howard Dean: Tim, you kno....

Fat Timmy: Doctor Dean, this is an extraordinary charge. Do you expect the American people, in this time of war and national emergency ......


And then this gets repeated ..... and repeated ..... and repeated .....


Yeah ... that'll help ...... a lot.

Here's the fact. This has to percolate into the public consciousness from sources outside the party establishment. This has to get some play elsewhere. For our leadership to toss it out there and make an accusation would do NOTHING but allow them to paint us as loons and conspiracy theorists.

Look, I'm on your side. But I also think we need to be VERY DAMNED CAREFUL with the gift that is the Downing Street Memo. Things like this don't come along very often. And keep in mind ... it isn't a transcript that has been notarized and entered into evidence. It is a summary. An impression. While I think it is strong and is, indeed, a smoking gun, we can't play it yet.

It needs to percolate from **other** sources.

No, we need to make that percolation happen. But we can't be the percolaters.

[Eloriel]

15. Putting a little much on one person's shoulders, aren't you?

Are you similarly outraged with the non-performance of every goddamned Democrat in Congress? Care to point out where you've ranted on all of them by name, individually?

Sheesh.

[mahina]

2. I second that!

It's coming on here in 20 minutes but my faith and aloha for Dr. Dean is strong. He's going to do what he needs to and we'll hold up our side too.

[fooj]

3. Point well taken...

Did you catch his refererence to Osama Bin Laden not being the cause of 9-11...he said it twice. It could have been a mistake, however, at first when I heard him I thought..."Holy Crap! He's going to talk about Griffin's lecture on C-Span!" Do you think he may have known exactly what he was doing re: what he said?

[Stinky The Clown]

4. Yanno, I caught that too ...... and scratched my head

Fat Timmy didn't even blink when said it ... and he said it not once, but twice.

Then I thought ... okay, next break some aide will correct him .... but nope ..... it just stayed there.

I honestly don't know what to make of it.

[fooj]

6. Ok...maybe I'm really reaching here but I think he did that ON PURPOSE!

If that is the case we have the real deal as the DNC! If that was his intention, it was BRILLIANT, IMO!:patriot:

peace.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. You may well be right. Dean's no one's fool

And to say the same seemingly erroreous thing twice ..... that's not like him. I first took it for a 'misspeak' ... but on reflection .... I don't think so.

[European Socialist]

5. 911 reference

Dean just got the names mixed up-Russert should have corrected him.

[fooj]

7. IMO, Dean is too articulate a speaker to screw that up TWICE!

peace.

[JNelson6563]

8. You make good points

I have 14 counties in my district. Some are strong and have lots of money some have no money or members. I have one camp who insists we need to sweep in, as a Cong. Dist., and suck all the cash out of the counties that we can for our US House candidate. I say no, we need to start from the bottom up and strengthen all the counties. While I work with our weaker counties, organizing membership drives, speaking at their fundraisers (trying to help rally the base) and teach them effective fundraising methods--I have detractors running around proclaiming I'm not doing anything. I'm not doing what they want me to do but I am doing much needed work.

An encompassing org. like a Cong. Dist. or a national party is made up of many little orgs. It's like a wedding cake in that one of those is really just a bunch of cakes put together to make one big one. If some of the cakes are poorly done the entire thing is affected. Same holds true for large orgs. made of up smaller ones.

I appreciated your perspective, thanks for posting.

Julie

[Coexist]

9. I thought Dean sounded great and he did "allude" to the memo

inserting the words "Downing Street memo" would have made it a grand slam, but I'll take the home run for now.

Dean has done nothing to erode my support of him. I liked how he clarified the abortion quote.

Dean is always his own man, that is what I loved about him. I won't fault him for not turning into my political dream now. Russert always asks tough questions (of everyone, in my opinion) and Dean handled it all like a pro.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. About the 'grand slam' ........ see my post #10, above. n/t

[Coexist]

19. great scenario

you have a sharp mind!

[mzmolly]

13. This will be aired again AT 9:00 CENTRAL, 10:00 EASTERN ON MSNBC.

:hi:

[necso]

14. It's wise to use

caution when dealing with any incriminating "documentation" that appears during an election campaign (as I seem to remember this doing during Blair's). And it's wise to use caution when dealing with the neocons in general -- dirty tricks are like ambrosia to them. (And they have tentacles in many, many places.)

And it's not like there is really anything both earthshaking and completely new here; we knew that war plans were going on long before the attack -- and that the case for war was being almost entirely invented from whole-cloth (lies). Moreover, a "phony" package overshadowing (and discrediting) its (widely accepted) contents (and those who put it forward) is nothing new at this point -- nor are forgeries in general.

Besides, I believe that I see agents pushing it... exactly like with the Rather thing.

Now I don't know either way (as to the package), but caution is advisable.

And one of the really bad things about phony documents (or ones made to be suspected) is that they poison the waters for other (even good) documents.

These days, when dealing with the outside world, one has to act like an intelligence analyst -- assigning each piece of data (the contents and package of an item are different things) and each source with only tentative confidence ratings, and constantly re-examining each in the light of the others and raising and lowering confidence levels.

It's an ugly game -- and one can't afford to let one's ego (or emotions -- or other weaknesses) get too involved, one way or the other. This could distort one's cold, detached judgment. And we can't afford to make this mistake, now more than ever. Because mass media is close to the edge of being completely, perhaps irretrievably, overwhelmed.

So using due caution is strongly advised.

[necso]

16. I am using "package"

in the broad sense of being both physical packaging and provenance* -- and how one "packages" content when putting it in some form. An uncommon usage perhaps, but one that highlights that there is content (of some kind) and then there is what you do with that content.

And there are a lot of games that you can play with content (that is, after you have decided what that content will be)... a lot of games. (Of course, engineering content itself is another level of the game. -- And one can expect similar tricks here.) And if you're good at it, you can use the whole process to seriously screw with the intended audience -- particularly if you understand their divisions, misconceptions, etc -- and especially the things that they will leap to believe.

*: provenance, the history of something from its point of origin and including its origin (my definition).

[KG]

17. don't expect the dem leadership to ever play up this memo.

get over it.

the dem leadership was wholeheartedly for the invasion of iraq, and is now wholeheartedly for the continued occupation of iraq.

this issue is DOA.

[radfringe]

18. yellow cake and Downing Street memo

remember the Niger Yellow Cake intel? and how commander cuckoo-banana and company used it to prop up the WMD lies? remember how they "authenticated" it by citing it came from BRITISH INTELLIGENCE?

now fast forward to the Downing Street memo - according to commander cuckoo-banana and company it's "hearsay", pooh-pooh on it, commander cuckoo-banana won't respond to it

this memo needs to be up on billboards across the country