Six weeks after its release by Rupert Murdoch’s Times of London, CNN seems to have realized that the “Downing Street Minutes” just might indicate that the “President” of the United States may have lied the country into an unnecessary War on Iraq.
We’re happy to see that CNN, along with many other MSM organizations, are finally covering (somewhat) what some of us “Conspiracy Theorists” have been covering for at least six weeks.
The report by Bill Schneider, available via Crooks & Liars, is not bad — even featuring some guy named John Conyers — though Schneider does manage to drop in some completely misleading and mangled analysis when he suggests that the reason this business is making news now is because support for the war has dropped to 42% or so, when it was over 60% in June of 2002.
NOTE TO BILL: One of the reasons support was so high back then, was because the “President” and his lackeys were actively running around the country, lying about Saddam’s WMD, and you guys were covering such claims without batting even the slightest critical eye. Now that more and more information has come out to demonstrate the entire affair was bullshit, support for the war has plummeted.
In other words, support has dropped because we now know the truth. As opposed to your suggestion that this material is gaining traction because support for the war is bottoming out.
That said, we do realize that you may now be willing to cover it because support is bottoming out. God forbid you should give critical coverage to anything that America is currently in favor of.
Of course, if Schneider has any information to suggest that his analysis is correct and our analysis is wrong, he didn’t bother to present it.
Perhaps CNN should stick to Michael Jackson, and leave the news to the bloggers.
I assume this is the same Bill Schneider who, in the wee hours of the morning after the 2004 election, was on TV to explain that exit poles are not always right. My, how proud he seemed to be that he was the expert called upon by wolf Blitzer to straighten out the "conspiracy theorists" regarding their misguided thinking.
He did make a two good statement thought.
1St- This issue is heating up.
2nd- He asked " The question is whether we were going to the UN to avoid the war or to justify it?"
Well spoken point.
Charlie
Schneider, Blitzer, etc., may as well be living on Pluto…because they haven’t a clue as to what is happening on this planet. Their lack of information and knowledge about what is happening on planet Earth, or in their own country, is astounding, given that they and their employers have undertaken the responsibility for reporting "the news". It must be so nice for them all to live together in "la, la land"…
Patience, Charlie – Schneider will soon be fed some false information from an unnamed source within the Administration to shut Schneider up and make the story die a quiet death, "in the interest of national security". And then Schneider at the end of the day drives in his nice car, to his nice big home, to his well-dressed wife if he has one, and if any his children wearing nice clothes, a pleasant dinner on the table, with nothing to think about…except pleasures for himself and his family…A Day in the Life of a CNN Employee…
Still there is some hope. This story is starting to come to live. Last night it was the #2 spot on NBC Nightly News (west coast edition anyway). It was preceeded by a report stating that Pakistan (Bushes good buddy in the mideast) was responsible for nuke info smuggled to Iran.
Both stories came as somewhat a suprise from NBC, but then again they confirmed the additional memos etc. in the downing street affair.
Starting to take off? I hope so.
A dissident voice writes:
Francis A. Boyle: ‘The national campaign to impeach President George W. Bush’
Bill Schneider is a conservative from the American Enterprise Institute, and of course CNN never informs its viewers that his point of view comes from the right.
Anyway, OT– Please check out Joseph Cannon’s latest post "Boycott Salon"
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/
Salon is now peddling the "chatty democrat" theory to explain the exit poll discrepency. Nice. They have been complete wimps on the election fraud topic, but this is total appeasement to the Fascist Right.
Los Angeles Times story By John Daniszewski
concerning the six March 2002 secret UK documents.
The momentum is certainly building!
The Basement Democratic Revolution of 6 or 7: has a nice ring to it, ought read well in future history books!
"Bring it on!"
Brad –
Even though Schneider said, that these things were coming out because support for the war is plummeting, is ass-backwards and would earn an "F" in an honest Logic 101 class, he might have let slip a little more than he meant to. It is very possible that, with network ratings in free-fall, the powers-that-be are realizing they’re done for if they don’t start telling it like it is once in a while.
I don’t know. It’s a thought…
"Even though what Schneider said…" *geeesh!*
I think Peg C is on to something.
I am now watching The Daily Show every afternoon.
Only before, I watched it on the Comedy Channel.
Now, I watch it on CNN International. As if it’s a NEWS program.
Again, like I have been saying for 5-6 years now: Our MSM is as believable as TASS.
Seen TASS lately?
Schneider’s a tool. Conyers is a hero and should be awarded a Medal of something, other Dems could learn a lot from this man.
OT but what the hell is Cheney up to?
6/15/05 results:
FOXNEWS O’REILLY 2,722,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY/COLMES 2,016,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 1,864,000
FOXNEWS SHEP SMITH 1,563,000
CNN LARRY KING 1,277,000
CNN AARON BROWN 751,000
CNN ZAHN 718,000
CNN COOPER 618,000
CNNHN NANCY GRACE 583,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 459,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 330,000
MSNBC SCARBOROUGH 325,000
MSNBC TUCKER CARLSON** 231,000
HMMMM: I DON’T SEE BILL SCHNEIDER ANYWHERE ON HERE?
OH YA, SHNEIDER IS CNN’S TOKEN GAY LIBERAL THAT DEMANDS TIME OR HE GOES "UPSTAIRS"!
Well Mr. Hanky/jimmo — what happened? Did they chase you off the Conyers Blog?
I think the memos are a moot point because it is becoming more and more obvious to me that the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11 was an inside job probably micromanaged by Neil Bush who served on the board of the company in charge of security for the WTC (and Dulles).
Jimmo must lead a pretty pathetic life. Spends all his time here on the Brad Blog, when he should be out bashing gays, stealing welfare checks from the poor or burning books on evolution, like a good little goose-stepping Bushist.
Brad, you are terrific – and I do get my news from you bloggers, not CNN – because I want good analysis, not crap and Republican talking points. Ah, you make me smile when I listen to your radio show, too. Thanks.
You make *me* smile when I read your comments, Rose. Thanks 🙂
Brad, I’m sure you have seen this before. If not, I hope it makes you all smile. It will make Jimmo frown, but if he stands on his head… he will finally see the world as it really is, and to us he’ll be smiling.
From Chris at MyDD:
PS
I think Jimmo made those stats up. O’Rielly has been tanking for the last year.
O’Reilly Dips Below Two Million Viewers
"O’Reilly’s May numbers dipped below 2 million for the first time in a year," the Washingtonian’s Harry Jaffe notes. "In October, during the election season, more than 3-million people were tuning in to O’Reilly’s diatribes." TVNewser first reported this trend last month. CNN says O’Reilly has lost 1,181,000 viewers since October:
October: 3,166,000 / November: 3,080,000 / December: 2,610,000 / January: 2,478,000 / February: 2,391,000 / March: 2,320,000 / April: 2,178,000 / May-to-date: 1,985,000
O’Reilly has also consistently lost viewers each month in the 25-54 demographic, from 951,000 in October to 420,000 in May, a decrease of 531,000 viewers.
jimmo/hank pasted his cable commentary ratings from the right sidebar of The Drudge Report, a wingnut propaganda website with no sourcing (of course) for the numbers.
Perhaps the numbers come from mediabistro.com‘s website as they seem to match up. However, once again the village idiot screwed up in his statements and usage of irrelevant numbers.
The most recent monthly ratings numbers indicate that the major cable news networks are indeed continuing their downward spiral at alarming rates. Supporting the MyDD article Nunya posted above, the May 2005 ratings contains this telling paragraph:
"In the key news demo–adults 25-54–CNN’s prime time average dropped 12% to 179,000. Leader Fox News’ average fell even more, off 16% to 332,000. MSNBC, on the other hand, was up 11% to 109,000."
The problem for jimmo/hank’s rant is that this is a news report, not a rated television show. If it weren’t for jimmo/hank’s double-digit IQ screwing things up for him and his equals around the white house….
From oreilly-sucks.com:
"6-2-05 — Breaking: The big slide continues, once again the factor ratings have dropped for the 7th month in a row. In October of 2004 the factor had a monthly average of 3.1 million viewers a month. Since then the factor has lost viewers every month. Last month (May) it dropped to a monthly average of 1.7 million. In April it was 1.9, so the factor viewers are still leaving at a rate of about 200,000 a month."
These Nielson ratings numbers come from the same mediabistro.com source jimmo/hanky’s wingnut tabloid gets them:
May 2005 Weekday Ranker (PDF)
News Corp. Leads Effort to Regulate Nielsen’s TV Rating System
Naturally.
Jimmo thinks people are watching O’Reilly and Fox. He knows better. He used the inflated numbers from the American dweebs like him who think MJ is big news.
Jimmo, do you know where your missing white women are?
Tuesday, Jun 14
Monday Ratings: P2+ & 25-54 Demo Data
Thanks to Michael Jackson, ratings for all the cable nets were above-average on Monday: In total day, FNC was up 55%, CNN was up 99%, MSNBC was up 80% and HLN was up 40% over May 2005 averages. Some numbers:
Total viewers:
Total day: FNC: 1,169,000 / CNN: 733,000 / MSNBC: 338,000 / HLN: 293,000 / CNBC: 131,000
Primetime: FNC: 1,990,000 / CNN: 1,283,000 / MSNBC: 445,000 / HLN: 540,000 / CNBC: 158,000
25-54 demographic:
Total day: FNC: 379,000 / CNN: 303,000 / MSNBC: 138,000 / HLN: 114,000 / CNBC: 31,000
Primetime: FNC: 634,000 / CNN: 556,000 / MSNBC: 197,000 / HLN: 202,000 / CNBC: 68,000
… That’s why we call Schneider CNN’s SENIOR ANAL-CYST!
Spinning so hard his false teeth will be flying out!
I started rattling cages with the "News" a few days after the Downing Street Memo came out, after seeing that no-one was covering it in the "Liberal" Media… Where is it? I demanded, with an informative report, so they couldn’t cop ignorance.
To be fair, Wolf Blitzer DID mention it , finally, on the 16th day, just sorta grazed it so they could claim to have reported on it, then nothing more… Who knows if it EVER would have seen the light of day if we hadn’t put up a clamor!
#16-memos.
The ‘memos’ are not a moot point. they are a point in the path which display the mind set that carried this nation from 911 to an illegal war.
There might be some truth in the Neil bush observation, he does appear frequently in the background as crimal events occur–such as his evening dinner date with a Hinkley brother but was cancelled due to a Hinkley brother shooting Pres. Ronald Reagen earlier that date. And Neil had access to Mark David Chapman the shooter (and killer) of John Lennon.
Coincidence? Conspiracy Theory? When the ball keeps dropping in the same hole it might mean that the hole is bigger.
Oh, Was the Osama’s family friends with and have business realtions with the bush’s? Did a tape message by Osama just pop up in time for the 2004 election? How odd.
O MY God. This is fucking awesome.
A Strategy of Lies: How the White House Fed the Public a Steady Diet of Falsehoods
Colonel Sam Gardiner (USAF, Ret.) has identified 50 false news stories created and leaked by a secretive White House propaganda apparatus.
The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner. "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" identifies more than 50 stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq.
Gardiner has credentials. He has taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College and was a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defense College.
According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort [that] began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner’s research lead him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to be false.
The Times of London described the $200-million-plus US operation as a "meticulously planned strategy to persuade the public, the Congress, and the allies of the need to confront the threat from Saddam Hussein."
The multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign run out of the White House and Defense Department was, in Gardiner’s final assessment "irresponsible in parts" and "might have been illegal."
"Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to the right decisions," Gardiner explains. Consequently, "Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage." For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs… [W]hat has happened is that information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the peoples of our two democracies."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced plans to create an Office of Strategic Influence early in 2002.
As soon as Pvt. Jessica Lynch was airlifted from her hospital bed, the first call from her "rescue team" went, not to military officials but to Jim Wilkinson, the White House’s top propaganda official stationed in Iraq.
White House critics were quick to recognize that "strategic influence" was a euphemism for disinformation. Rumsfeld had proposed establishing the country’s first Ministry of Propaganda.
The criticism was so severe that the White House backed away from the plan. But on November 18, several months after the furor had died down, Rumsfeld arrogantly announced that he had not been deterred. "If you want to savage this thing, fine: I’ll give you the corpse. There’s the name. You can have the name, but I’m gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done — and I have."
Those stories include:
The link between terrorism, Iraq and 9/11
Iraqi agents meeting with 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta
Iraq’s possession of chemical and biological weapons.
Iraq’s purchase of nuclear materials from Niger.
Saddam Hussein’s development of nuclear weapons.
Aluminum tubes for nuclear weapons
The existence of Iraqi drones, WMD cluster bombs and Scud missiles.
Iraq’s threat to target the US with cyber warfare attacks.
The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch.
The surrender of a 5,000-man Iraqi brigade.
Iraq executing Coalition POWs.
Iraqi soldiers dressing in US and UK uniforms to commit atrocities.
The exact location of WMD facilities
WMDs moved to Syria.
Every one of these stories was false.
The "major thrust" of the campaign, Gardiner explains, was "to make a conflict with Iraq seem part of a struggle between good and evil. Terrorism is evil… we are the good guys.
"The second thrust is what propaganda theorists would call the ‘big lie.’ The plan was to connect Iraq with the 9/11 attacks. Make the American people believe that Saddam Hussein was behind those attacks."
Rumsfeld hired Rendon Associates, a private PR firm that had been deeply involved in the first Gulf War. Founder John Rendon (who calls himself an "information warrior") proudly boasts that he was the one responsible for providing thousands of US flags for the Kuwaiti people to wave at TV cameras after their "liberation" from Iraqi troops in 1991.
The White House Coalition Information Center was set up by Karen Hughes in November 2001. (In January 2003, the CIC was renamed the Office for Global Communications.) The CIC hit on a cynical plan to curry favor for its attack on Afghanistan by highlighting "the plight of women in Afghanistan." CIC’s Jim Wilkinson later called the Afghan women campaign "the best thing we’ve done."
Gardiner is quick with a correction. The campaign "was not about something they did. It was about a story they created… It was not a program with specific steps or funding to improve the conditions of women."
The coordination between the propaganda engines of Washington and London even involved the respective First Wives. On November 17, 2001, Laura Bush issued a shocking statement: "Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women’s fingernails for wearing nail polish." Three days later, a horrified Cherie Blaire told the London media, "In Afghanistan, if you wear nail polish, you could have your nails torn out."
Misleading via Innuendo
Time and again, US reporters accepted the CIC news leaks without question. Among the many examples that Gardiner documented was the use of the "anthrax scare" to promote the administration’s pre-existing plan to attack Iraq.
In both the US and the UK, "intelligence sources" provided a steady diet of un-sourced allegations to the media to suggest that Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists were behind the deadly mailing of anthrax-laden letters.
It Gardiner believes this was an intentional part of the propaganda campaign. "If a story supports policy, even if incorrect, let it stay around."
In a successful propaganda campaign, Gardiner wrote, "We would have expected to see the creation [of] stories to sell the policy; we would have expected to see the same stories used on both sides of the Atlantic. We saw both. The number of engineered or false stories from US and UK stories is long."
The US and Britain: The Axis of Disinformation
Before the coalition invasion began on March 20, 2003, Washington and London agreed to call their illegal pre-emptive military aggression an "armed conflict" and to always reference the Iraqi government as the "regime." Strategic communications managers in both capitols issued lists of "guidance" terms to be used in all official statements. London’s 15 Psychological Operations Group paralleled Washington’s Office of Global Communications.
In a departure from long military tradition, the perception managers even took over the naming of the war. Military code names were originally chosen for reasons of security. In modern US warfare, however, military code names have become "part of the marketing." There was Operation Nobel Eagle, Operation Valiant Strike, Operation Provide Comfort, Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Uphold Democracy and, finally, Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Gardiner saw another break with procedure. The information on the (Jessica Lynch) rescue that was released to the Post "would have been very highly classified" and should have been closely guarded. Instead, it was used as a tool to market the war. "This was a major pattern from the beginning of the marketing campaign throughout the war," Gardiner wrote. "It was okay to release classified information if it supported the message."
http://www.parapolitics.info/ph...225&t=225