What is the RW spin on the Downing Street minutes?

[cestpaspossible]

I might as well have my counter-counter-attack ready... what are the RW talking points to counter, or have they not come up with any yet?

[berni_mccoy]

1. Here is one type of challenge

I believe I successfully defended (following the reply chain off the link):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1823255&mesg_id=1823309&page=

[notadmblnd]

2. as far as I know there is none

they've totally ignored it. Hopefully it will bite them in the ass soon.

[Melodybe]

3. Best they can do is mutter some shit about the whole world thinking

that Saddam had WMDs, and our intelligence was bad.

Considering that they are the ones that FIXED the god damn intelligence, escapes them.

They got nothing.

[aden_nak]

4. There is no spin. That's why there's no coverage of the minutes.

[ProfessorPlum]

5. It doesn't exist.

as far as I can tell, that's the RW spin.

Scotty has made some blustering comment on it, but I forget exactly what he said.

[librechik]

11. some try to Rathergate the memo

claiming it's bogus. Of course it has been acknowledged as a true representation of went on during the meeting, and it is written at the HIGHEST level of the British govt. so that scam can't work here. Then they lamely say, "Oh, so you believe furriners about our dear leader!"

um, yeah...

[Warpy]

6. "If it's not on the evening news

then those minutes were forged/left wing lies/interpreted the wrong way/don't really exist."

See no evil, hear no evil, believe the little tin Jesus in the White House is a righteous man.

[Brotherjohn]

7. "Old news" plus "It's only an opinion".

Just posted this in another thread, but it's relevant here:

The former ("old news") of course, is ridiculous.

"It's old news that Bush lied to Congress, the American people and the world in initiating an unprecedented and illegal war of choice... so why do anything about it now?! We already KNOW he's a war criminal!"

That of course, is ridiculous.

Watch out for the latter, though. While many keep saying that it's "minutes" and not a memo, that's not entirely true... They may be closer to "minutes", but they are not a verbatim word-for-word transcript of the meeting. Even Kieth Olbermann made this point when doing a show on it weeks ago.

AND it IS actually one person's take (Dearlove) on the situation in Washington. Actually, another person's characterization of Dearlove's take on the situation in Washington, and the Bush administration's actions. So they will attempt to cast it in that way, too.

BUT of course, I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here... answering your question.

The appropriate response is to point out that this document does not occur in a vacuum. It backs up, in a very reliable way from official (undisputed) government documents, what has already been said by many... including Bush's own former counter-terrorism chief (Clarke) and Treasury Secretary (O'Neill).

It is as near as we may ever come to a "smoking gun" that the Bush administration is indeed guilty of everything its critics have been saying since before the war started.

IF IT LOOKS LIKE A DUCK, AND QUACKS LIKE A DUCK...

[wicket]

8. "doesn't matter" "old news" "debunked"

etc.

[rocktivity]

9. All I've heard is that it was only the writer's opinion

But if that was the case, why didn't the British goverment try to stop him?

:headbang:
rocknation

[Brotherjohn]

10. Plus, more of a potential counter-attack:

Prominent Dems should say things such as this:

"We already have had high-ranking officials from the Bush administration allege this SAME thing: they were determined to go to war and were 'fixing the facts and intelligence' to support war. Okay, you say, those were "disgruntled former employees" trying to sell books. But we're not just talking about some laid-off flunky. We're talking about a full cabinet member and their own head of counter-terrorism!"

"ADD TO THAT: We already KNOW that they were publicly making statements about the Iraqi threat that the CIA and others within OUR OWN intelligence community had privately warned them not to make... statements which we know were not backed up by the available evidence at the time, and sometimes directly contradicted by it. Included in this are the two key points alleging the threat of a 'mushroom cloud': the alumnium tubes and the Niger uranium deal."

Going further, as hopefully Kerry will do:
"We also now know that much of the information they presented to Congress to get the Iraq War Resolution passed was known to be doubtful at the time and subject to much more speculation than they let on. In other words, they misled Congress."

"NOW, we have official, undisputed, government documents, from the highest levels of government of our chief ally, detailing that all of these accusations are true."

"When does one began to say: 'Okay, maybe their critics were right'? 'Maybe they were bent on war and DID mislead everyone'? We should remember that every investigations conducted thus far have specifically avoided this question. But it is becoming clearer and clearer by the day that the Bush administration did indeed 'fix the facts and intelligence' to convince the American people and Congress that immediate war was necessary... a war which we now know, was in fact not necessary at all."

[gaspee]

12. My take: They don't care

They know it was fixed. They've known it along and they don't care. If it resulted in Rambo going to kick some raghead ass (their words, not mine) they're all for it.

Sure, they make noise that it was about WMDs or about 'liberating' the Iraqi people from 'evil.' But they know better. Like we all do.

I know I wasn't the only one yelling 'BULLSHIT' at the TV when Powell got up in front of the UN and lied his ass off. The man's not a good liar.

[LondonReign2]

13. You are correct

A point I was making in another thread: The RW *knows* Bush was lying, and they are perfectly happy with that, so long as we "killed some Arabs" and they aren't too fussy about which ones.

Welcome to DU gaspee

[Pryderi]

15. Give me a list of Bush lies.

[enough already]

14. They are ignoring it

And so is the MSM. Pretty effective thus far.

[demo dutch]

16. Foxs News published it yesterday- see link

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,158228,00.html