DOESN'T ANYONE CARE ANYMORE?

Look, I fully realize that the debate over prewar intelligence is important and certainly within the context of that debate, what the CIA Director said on the Hill matters. What I can't figure out is why no one seems to care that he also said that there are al Queda threats keeping him up at night. It isn't in the Post's reporting of his testimony, and Dana Priest is one of the best national security beat reporters in the country.

The Times isn't even really interested in pre-war intelligence per se. They're interested in the administration's use of that intelligence. Look at their headline: "CIA Chief Says He Corrected Cheney Privately." I wonder how large a part of the testimony that little contretemps even was.

When you do a google search including the most obvious term Tenet used when speaking of the al Queda threat ("brass ring") the only mainstream US news outlet that comes up is Fox News. When you google aiming for the Kennedy exchange (the roughest way I could estimate the other kind of coverage) you get thirteen US articles.

Again, I have no problem with that coverage. But this man is in charge of US intelligence, and he has come before the Senate to warn that we are still at risk, that there is still a threat -- should the press not also cover that?

The problem they face is that a single narrative storyline can't cover what happened. That's because two things did happen yesterday. Tenet arrived with prepared testimony and the Senators chose to ask about something else. But the press is so wedded to the idea that there has to be a single story that other than Fox they didn't figure out there could be two stories here.

And by the way, notice which one they decided was more important.

Update: Well I missed one that Kevin Drum found. (Via Memeorandum.) But notice that while he's interested in exactly what I am (how did outlets differ in their coverage) he's only going to take them seriously at all if their focus is the pre-war intelligence. He's nothing but bemused that an outlet actually zeroed in the al Queda threat. Why? Isn't that a legitimate story too? And wasn't it not long ago that Tenet's CIA was being excoriated for "not connecting the dots?" Well, the truth of the matter is that before 9/11 Tenet was screaming to anyone who would listen about the threat posed by OBL. Only not many would listen. Have we come full circle so soon?

Comments

[Ken Dow]

It is widely accepted that al-Qaeda is still a very serious threat to us, so it is to be expected that Tenet remains highly concerned about al-Qaeda and not particularly newsworthy that he says so. (Please do not give me some nonsense about Democrats pretending that there is no threat. There are disagreements over how to handle terrorism and who and what the priorities should be, not whether it is a threat.)
When Tenet sheds light on a very serious controversy--whether or not the administration truly of falsely represented to the American citizenry the basis for going to war--it is extremely newsworthy. When he states that the Vice-President of the United States significantly distorted or misrepresented U.S. intelligence findings to make his case for going to war, despite those misrepresentations being brought to his attention by the CIA chief, it is very big news indeed.

[Richard Heddleson]

September 12 people care. September 10 people run the mainstream media.

[dauber]

You'll forgive me: I am still unsure how this works, so I don't know if I'm supposed to be jumping in here or not. Two pts in answer to Ken. First, I dont know that it is widely known precisely what al Queda's status is today, in part b/c there is a legitimate debate over what their ability to adapt to our counterterrorism efforts has been and in part b/c, as I keep saying, the press just hasn't been interested in reporting on the debate, the threat, or anything to do with them in a serious way for quite awhile. Note, please, I NEVER argued anything to suggest that the pre-war intelligence story wasn't completely newsworthy: I absolutely agree with you that it was. My pt. was that I was greatly frustrated that the press was so tied to their templates (there will be ONE storyline to event, please!) that they wouldn't cave and admit they had two equally substantive and equally important stories on their hands.

As to your second point, I do not argue (and, I cant be positive, but I'm pretty sure I've never argued) that Dems do not see the threat, although I have certainly linked to people who have split the line that way. I've argued that there are September 10th people and September 12th people and I've been far more likely to tie "September 10th thinking" to the cultural intelligentsia than to a particular political party. I am aware that other people read this as a partisan blog, but I don't see it that way and that is not my interest. I have very strong views on certain arguments but it is those arguments that I care about.