On the one hand, credit where it's due, as a critical item about a Senate Intelligence report on pre-war intelligence makes it onto the front page of the Times, before the jump. The reporter writes:
The unanimous report by the panel will say there is no evidence that intelligence officials were subjected to pressure to reach particular conclusions about Iraq. That issue had been an early focus of Democrats, but none of the more than 200 intelligence officials interviewed by the panel made such a claim, and the Democrats have recently focused criticism on the question of whether the intelligence was misused.
That's a mighty big concession.
But on the other hand, note this sentence:
The Senate report, the result of more than a year's work by the panel's staff, is the first of three to be issued this summer that are expected to be damning of the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies. The presidential commission on the Sept. 11 attacks is expected to release its final report this month, while Charles A. Duelfer, who is heading what has been an unsuccessful effort to find illicit weapons in Iraq, is expected to report in August or September
You know, once you phrase it as a search for "illicit weapons" we aren't talking about vast weapons stockpiles ready to be fired, as you might could argue we would be if someone used the phrase "WMD." No, use that phrase and all you're talking about is items Iraq isn't allowed to have.
Well, what is it, exactly, that serves as the mental block preventing reporters from major national outlets from remembering the fact that such weapons have in fact been found?
Maybe it's a viscious circle. The news is reported on Fox. They don't watch it or don't believe it, so it isn't reported, which means it isn't reported, and so on and so and so on.
Which of course means when Fox reports otherwise -- or Fox viewers say otherwise -- it (or they) are given no credibility.
Comments