> There seems to be a lot of flap in the papers lately about the Bush
> lies/incompetence. "Tenet falls on sword..." etc. What's going on?
> Didn't the media know that it was all made up to begin with? Why do they
> care about it now? What has changed? I don't get it.
I think there are 4 reasons.
1. It squares the political circle for the Democrats. It explains why they were fourquare for war then and are against it now: because they were lied to. And it's important that it be secret intelligence that was distorted, because that is the one form of lie they can't be blamed for taking on faith.
2. There is some also genuine outrage on the part of elites that only makes sense when you imagine living in their different world. Daniel Ellsberg in his recent memoirs had a wonderful passage on how access to secret intelligence goes to your head. Soon all you can think about is how you know things that others don't. Eventually you just stop listening to everyone who doesn't. And you forget basic truths that are obvious to peasants like us, like that the only evidence that matters in the court of world opinion is public evidence because secret evidence isn't evidence at all. It's medieval.
So where we saw no evidence, or obviously fake evidence, the elite (including representatives of Congress) were told in their closed meetings that secret evidence proved it all.
To the rest of us, the idea that they thought that was enough to justify unprovoked war, is outrageous. And nothing more needs be proven.
But to them, what's outrageous is that they were lied to in those secret briefings. Suddenly they see themselves transformed from privileged initiates into the country's stupidest dupes. Their amour propre has been violated.
3. Ellsberg also leads to the third point. Vietnam, our model of a war gone wrong, was all about distorting intelligence as well. The body politic is cringing on conditioned reflex. It senses a quagmire.
4. Lastly, there's good old fashioned political opportunism, finally played by the liberal side. You pull at your opponent's weak point whenever it exposes itself. The weak point of the Bushits is credibility. A tiny bit has finally, at long last, become exposed. Pull like crazy.
And if you can get farther by pretending you're shocked, pretend you're shocked.
Michael