The Almighty Memo

First off, Barry, I agree the Reason Mag article is quite good. Aside from that I have a couple of reactions to the story. First, is that these guys are awfully clever, and damned good at what they do. I think it would be safe to say that this leak is a direct response to the pressure that forced Bush and company to state publicly that there was no known connection between Iraq and 9/11. These admissions had caused the widespread public belief to the contrary to waiver, but now Feith has muddied the water again. This crap doesn't have to hold up to intense scrutiny, nor do I think it was ever intended to. It's just there to confuse an issue which, if clarified, could do them a lot of damage. They knew that the conservative press and grassroots offshoots would take it as gospel and would give it enough exposure to serve their purposes. Whether or not anyone else bought it was of no great importance. It was very slick, and I think it worked.

My other interest in the story is the coverage itself. It's interesting to see some stories like this that spread like wildfire across blogs and partisan news sources and then are slowly, almost reluctantly, handled by the mainstream press. You can almost see the paradigm shift before your eyes. I think it's a good one. It's the democratizing effect that we always hoped the internet could have on the media. If they don't cover it, we'll damned well cover it ourselves. And Barry will call them up and let 'em know about it. :)