What's Isikoff up to here?

[Cocoa]

This is old news. Despite what Isikoff says, it was widely known (though lamentably little discussed) that Gonzalez was laying the groundwork for Bush going to Iraq without Congress. For example, I repeatedly made reference to this fact when arguing on DU that the Iraq War Resolution was less significant in our going to war than people were saying.

But what is Isikoff doing here? Is he inoculating Bush/Gonzalez against this issue, knowing that dems are going to raise it at the confirmation hearing?

Or is he protecting his own profession, realizing that soon the public is going to get clued into yet another of the press's massive failures?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/

<snip>

The existence of the memo, titled “The President’s Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them,” was first reported by NEWSWEEK in the fall of 2001. But its contents—including the conclusion that Bush could order attacks against countries unrelated to the 9/11 attacks—were not publicly available until late this week when, with no notice to the public or the news media, the memo was posted on an obscure portion of the Web site of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. (There is nothing on the site calling attention to the memo. It is was simply added to a list of previously published memos posted for the calendar year 2001.)

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