6/19/2005 01:30:00 PM|||Nathan Moore|||

I like Bruce. He is often entertaining and well-spoken when appearing on the Teddy Bart Roundtable. But his rather myopic focus on the Downing Street Memo, though he disclaims it as not being such, is, well, odd. It's not a smoking gun, but it is. It is

Let's recount. It's a foreign memo, without an authenticating source, from a government having public relations trouble and a loss of political influence at home stemming from the subject of the memo itself. It states an opinion of someone, though we're not sure who, and we can only be "sure" that the memo was written by Matthew Rycroft, British ambassador and aide to the prime minister.

Second, Mr. Barry makes a somewhat-stink about Republicans scheduling floor votes drawing Democrats away from a fake hearing, which can best be described as a publicity stunt, peppered with attendees and witnesses offering a smathering of anti-Israeli propoganda (you know...that kind of stuff that talks about Jews knowing and planning 9/11, etc.). I know it may be inconvenient to attend to official business when a fake hearing is underway, but sometimes the job simply must get done.

The operative part:

I want to be clear that the DSM is not by itself convincing evidence of malfeasance. But it's an important clue regarding the most controversial and as yet uninvestigated aspect of a war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of people. The fact that it can't even get a legitimate hearing in Congress is convincing evidence that the health of our democracy is in serious trouble.

So, the memo itself is not convincing, and proves nothing. But we should investigate extensively nonetheless. Yes, it is true. Tens of thousands have been "killed and maimed". The missing context of course is that tens of millions have been freed, and are no longer being killed and maimed. A slight detail that may be worth mentioning.

The health of our democracy is in trouble? Perhaps the Democrats are in trouble. But questioning the health of our Republic because your unpreferred party is in power is hyperbolic at best.

UPDATE More rote defensism of the DSM here. I'm not sure that it matters. It does seem that there are only a select few rather loud individuals who give credence to the existence of the original memo, much less the content.

FURTHER UPDATE Captain's Quarters comes to the same conclusion I did. On the face of things, the memo is uncorroborated. There is no authenticating evidence to be found anywhere at this point. I go further, conceding that it is authentic, it is still largely irrelevant. The case for Hussein's removal came in 1991 and his subsequent breach of UN Resolution after UN Resolution in the 1990s. CQ puts it this way

All of the Western nations had intelligence that matched with the Bush/Blair determination that Saddam had not disposed of his WMD stocks. Prior to 9/11, the Western approach of waiting Saddam out appeared adequate. After 9/11, the existence of those WMD stocks clearly was intolerable, given Saddam's involvement with terrorist groups in the past

All true. The one constant of the Left since 9/11 is a failure to adequately grasp how 9/11 changed the way the world is to be viewed. Every criticism, from Gitmo, to the war in Iraq, to the opposition to Richard Bolton's nomination, is grounded in a world where individuals are not so much evil as they are misunderstood. It's a wishful, rather rosy view of religious fascists who have vowed our collective destruction. I personally don't feel comfortable reasoning away their stated intent.

FURTHER UPDATE Captain's Quarters was linked on Drudge. Not sure that I've seen Drudge link a blog before. I know I read somewhere he doesn't like to do it. Very interesting.

|||111920642604704458|||Bruce Barry Unhinged