19
Jun
“Downing Street Memo” climbs the Google charts
BTC News White House correspondent Eric Brewer, the first correspondent to introduce the Downing Street Memo at a White House briefing, has been following the number of results returned by a Google search for the phrase, “Downing Street Memo.” On May 1, the number was near zero. On June 18, the number had reached 1,320,000 in a search for the exact phrase and 1,510,000 for the three words.
Brewer, a scientist by trade, produced the chart above showing the growth in the popularity of the search term and highlighting some significant milestones along the way, including the original publication of the memo in the London Sunday Times on April 30 and the May 23 White House briefing at which he became the first and for some while the only correspondent to question White House press secretary Scott McClellan about the meeting minutes of which the memo consists.
A search of Google News, which indexes 30 days of results from nearly 5,000 news sources, returns a much smaller number of references: 1,820 for the 30 days ending June 19. Many of those results are duplicates or stories in which the memo is peripheral, or both; two AP stories, one from June 17 and another from June 18, alone account for nearly 100 of those 1,820 references, and the memo is not the primary focus of either story.
Only a handful of stories about the memo appeared in the US press prior to mid-May. Since then, much of the coverage has been about the coverage of the memo rather than about the memo itself.
A number of other secret British documents, some leaked last year and others in the weeks since the Downing Street Memo appeared, provide additional detail and context for the British concerns about the impending invasion — at times the documents are reminiscent of the film Animal House, with Saddam’s Iraq on double secret probation and the British officials discussing ways to trick Saddam into justifying an invasion — and the British assessment of US intentions and actions.
Missing is any clear explication of motive.
Links:
- After Downing Street
- The Downing Street Memo
- Sunday Times reporter Michael Smith discusses his scoops
![[del.icio.us]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Google]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[StumbleUpon]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/stumbleupon.png)
![[Windows Live]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/windowslive.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
CNN still seems more interested in Terri Schiavo’s corpse.
June 19th, 2005 at 11:56 amInteresting statistics. Thanks.
June 19th, 2005 at 4:30 pmit’s time for news revolution, so if you can, stop watching the news and start reading it
June 19th, 2005 at 5:38 pmWhat caused the discontinuity on 7 June?
June 19th, 2005 at 5:41 pmNight of the living memos
June 20th, 2005 at 12:47 am“Every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources, these are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and
It seems that the only mention I saw of the Downing Street Memo last night (on FOX) was “Rosies Rant” (seemingly put on as sarcasim)!
June 20th, 2005 at 3:27 amI cant believe how Arrogent the ‘truth according to Ruppert Murdock’ FOX news has become!
I too have been following this stories impact, unlike this hard to follow bar graph I have actual numbers for 3 seperate but unique search terms. I run each one through Google Web and Google News and report the numbers. Over the weekend “Downing Street Memo” gained over 500,000 results.
June 20th, 2005 at 3:33 amOkay, Weldon, I finally read the Downing Street Memo. It certainly does not support the view that the British and American governments were intentionally misleading the public about Iraq’s possession of WMD. For example, the memo states that the British military were unsure about the consequences of an invasion “if Saddam used WMD on day one. . . or on Israel.” Thus, although the Iraqi “WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran,” the Americans and British clearly believed the Iraqi capability to exist. The discussion about the “legal” bases for a regime change does not disturb me in the least. Indeed, I would hope that the United States looks at the legality of its armed interventions before undertaking any military incursion. If anything, the memo suggests that thought was actually given to the invasion and its relationship to the other perceived problems in Iran, Libya and North Korea well before the invasion took place.
Moreover, I am not especially surprised that in July of 2002, “it seemed clear Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.” The Bush administration had wanted to take out Saddam Hussein regardless of the September 11th terrorist attacks. Indeed, the unresolved issue of Saddam Hussein (i.e., whether to contain or change the regime) had been batted around during the prior Clinton administrations. The September 11th attacks merely gave the Bush administration another excuse to invade Iraq to effect a regime change. But the Bush administration’s preference for regime change was obvious all along; after Bush made his ultimatum to Iraq, few seriously doubted whether Bush would authorize an invasion sooner or later. The decision may ultimately reflect bad judgment, but I do not find this memo particularly disturbing.
June 20th, 2005 at 10:58 amP, it was obvious to some people that the invasion was inevitable. The point, though, is that it was not obvious to a large number of people that the administration were dead set on war long before the “Get out of Dodge” warning — many people still insist, some sincerely, that the administration did everything they could to avoid war, which is patently absurd — and the press certainly didn’t report it in that light. It’s also worth noting, I think, that the meeting in question took place in July of 2002, and that most of the evidence which was described by Straw as “thin” had gotten a whole lot thinner, to the point of invisibility, by the time of the invasion.
So the value of the memo, and the other ones being leaked around it, is in its impact on the small but for once pivotal group of non-brain dead people who genuinely believed what the administration were saying. It is evidence that leftist and libertarian freaks were in the company of the most senior officials of our closest ally in recognizing that the war was a done deal. It’s a portal out of Wonderland for anyone who wants to use it.
June 20th, 2005 at 11:18 amAs I see it, Weldon, the only portal (if any) out of Wonderland will not be recollections of the past mistakes or even any outright lies of the Bush administration, but either an end to the insurgency or continued U.S. military losses in Iraq. Results count, even when the regime changed by an invasion was a brutal dictatorship. If (contrary to Vice President Cheney’s recent assertions) the U.S. losses continue to mount, the American voters’ patience with the administration’s foreign policy in Iraq will continue to wear thinner and thinner, and the withdrawal from Iraq will be a central issue in the 2008 presidential election. The Baby Boomers, who are now largely running the country, have not forgotten the Vietnam experience. And to most Boomers the lesson of Vietnam was not that the U.S. must “stay the course” at all costs, but that never ending war cannot be justified simply because the government says so. That’s why people like Senator Biden have pleaded with the administration to be honest about both the need for and the difficulties with the plan to build a “democracy” in Iraq; better to prepare the voters for the difficulties that lie ahead than to mislead and hope for the best. And I suspect the next democratic candidate for president will have to espouse a Nixonian strategy to exit with “honor” by turning over the whole mess to the Iraqis. (That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.)
June 20th, 2005 at 12:24 pmI think the next Democratic presidential candidate will have to do better than turning the mess over to the Iraqis. That’s the one sure way to get everyone else in the region overtly involved. The better, if considerably more difficult option is to find a way to turn the “peacekeeping” over to the UN.
Getting out will require recollection of past Bush administration mistakes and outright lies, both as a motivating factor and as a future preventive one. My equally gold-plated prediction is that a whole lot of legislators will suddenly discover next year not that they were wrong, but that they’ve been duped. It isn’t any accident that the legislation introduced by Walter “Freedom Fries” Jones calls for beginning the withdrawal of US troops by October 1 of next year. So for reasons above and beyond my desire to see this bunch of criminal and criminally arrogant fuckers staked out on a metaphorical anthill, understanding and resenting the degree to which the administration lied and cheated to get us into this war is essential to getting us out of it, particularly in a fashion that doesn’t blow up the surrounding states as well.
June 20th, 2005 at 1:20 pmPublius, the fact that it has taken you fifty days to read the memo is a pretty clear indication that you were planning to be unimpressed. The Brits “believed” that Hussein had WMD, but why? Did they have good evidence for that belief? Or did they believe because they had to in order to go along with Bush, who was intent on “regime change” and needed a way to justify that to the world. The way chosen was to link Hussein to WMD and terrorism. The Brits couldn’t swallow the terrorism link (as the leaked Ricketts document says), so what was there left but to go along with inflating the claims about WMD. The story in the Guardian today, which quotes the British diplomat Carne Ross as saying all the claims about WMD were utterly implausible, ought to put paid to your reasons for dismissing DSM. You really learned nothing shocking from it? Not that Bush was lying to the nation for months about his plans? To Congress? That the “UN route” was a charade from the start, intended not to find whether Hussein had WMDs, nor to disarm him, but to “wrong-foot” him into turning down a UN ultimatum, thus providing a pretext for invasion (the “context” in which people will accept regime change, as Blair puts it so smarmily). In sum, you’re either so far behind the rest of the blogosphere in understanding the import of these documents, or your arguments are tendentious. I see no alternative interpretation.
June 20th, 2005 at 2:23 pmRe: Elendil’s question about the upturn in hits on June 7th – probably because that was the day of the joint Bush-Blair press conference, at which they were quizzed about the memo, IIRC.
June 20th, 2005 at 2:42 pmWeldon, I agree that we’ll probably see some “duck and cover” excuses during the mid-term elections, but the real battle will occur in 2008. The negative poll numbers on Iraq already outweigh the positive, but the Iraqi war and U.S. foreign policy in general are primarily presidential issues. Moreover, the slow bleed of the insurgency, I think, will take a few more years to inflict fatal damage on the misbegotten policy.
Smintheus, I honestly had no preconceived idea about the contents of the memo before I read it. Having heard Al Gore and Hillary Clinton personally state prior to the invasion that the Iraqis had substantial WMD, however, I was not particularly surprised by the contents of the memo, which clearly indicate that the American and British governments believed the Iraqis still possessed the proscribed weapons. In any event, the American people apparently do not care very much about being “misled” to war, but (I maintain) will care very much about the continued and mounting war losses and ultimately will hold the republicans accountable in 2008 if the war losses have not substantially ceased by then. Where was the outcry, for example, over the misleading State of the Union assertions about a nuclear threat (i.e., the African uranium scandal) or the Plame outing? I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face: The American voters care about war losses and not about the false or misleading excuses originally given for the invasion.
June 20th, 2005 at 4:15 pmThot you might like to see or use this. I sent as letter to editor Times-Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA
IMPEACHMENT: THE CLEANSER TO
REMOVE THE STAIN FROM AMERICA
By: JLS
Have you heard about the Downing Street Memos?
If it is true that they prove Bush and Blair conspired to “fix the intelligence” to manipulate the United Nations and too knowingly use non-existent weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for their otherwise illegal invasion of Iraq, there might be cause to bring about impeachment proceedings.
Finally, we may have found the cleanser that will scrub away the stain put on the American image abroad and our domestic psyche here at home. Only by impeaching Bush for his efforts to deceive the public and his unconstitutional actions can we ever hope to regain our honor and the trust of the world.
It would a fitting end to the debacle that started with the 2000 election. By impeaching Bush the American people would prove that they have come to their senses and are no longer ruled by fear or the specter of 911. I suspect that even the most sincere conservatives know in their heart that he is not, nor never was the man their “Noise Machine” made him out to be.
Even a genius such as Karl Rove can’t make a “silk purse” out of a man who’s past, unpreparedness, and willingness to play loose with the truth is beginning to catch up with him.
Although he apparently won the 2004 election with a legitimate, but slim margin, his approval ratings have tanked in recent weeks and the majority of the American people are beginning to see what their fellow human beings across the Atlantic saw months ago — that the war against Iraq is not worth fighting.
American blood should never be spilled for the purpose of regime change anywhere in the world — or for the benefit of multi-national corporations. Bush and Blair knew the world would not sanction a war just to oust a brutal dictator or get control of an oil field.. The original name for their planned operation was to be Operation Iraqi Liberation — until someone pointed out the name would be abbreviated O-I-L. Thus, came about OIF — Operation Iraqi Freedom.
No one questions the resolve, the patriotism, the ability or the dedication of the men and women of our Armed Forces. Most of them deserve the admiration, the respect, the thanks and the bipartisan support of all parties. But more and more of those in uniform are coming to the conclusion that their role is to defend the soil of the United States of America; not wage pre-emptive and ill conceived attacks on sovereign nations overseas. I have always wondered how career officers and enlisted men and women could follow, without question, the orders of a Commander in Chief who could not — or would not — ever answer the questions regarding his own record of military service.
As a nation, we the people, can not wait until 2008 for regime change. We need to reclaim our country and its rightful place in the world. We need to right the wrongs we have allowed this administration to perpetrate in our name. We need to do it now and we need to use the tools given to us by the founding fathers. Our magnificent Constitution provides for the removal of officials who mislead the people and misuse the powers entrusted to them. Within the boundaries of our own country we have the right and obligation to bring about regime change when it becomes necessary. For the sake of future generations it is necessary — now!
June 20th, 2005 at 4:58 pmIsn’t the real issue the fact that the polis of the country was lied to and signed on to George’s excellent adventure? The fact that Publius Too, Betty the Crow and JackD knew about it all along isn’t really the point, is it?
June 20th, 2005 at 5:28 pmJackD, I agree that the prior expectation of a few observers isn’t the point being made here. However, the reasons given for starting the war no longer matter to the electorate; rather, (I think) the electorate is and will be mainly concerned about the reasons for continuing the war. The American people will tolerate continuing losses if fully justified to protect national security, notwithstanding the erroneous or false reasons initially given for undertaking the adventure. But Americans will not indefinitely sacrifice blood and treasure to prove some political or other strategic point, such as the domino theory that justified the Vietnam War or the democratization theory now being used to justify the Iraq War. Thus, the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam without a victory not simply because the American electorate was misled, but because the losses became wholly unjustifiable. The eventual loss of Vietnam did not truly threaten American security or other vital American interests, and political or strategic theories carry politicians only so far when swimming upstream against the currents of reality.
With the threat of Iraqi WMD clearly behind us, the Iraq War will not be tolerated indefinitely without another clear threat to national security coming from Iraq. The administration is still tying the War to its fight against terrorists because now the “terrorists” are fighting an insurgency in Iraq. If that proves to be another canard, then I think the American electorate will force the U.S. to withdraw rather quickly. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
June 21st, 2005 at 4:56 amMoreover, I am not especially surprised that in July of 2002, “it seemed clear Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.”
And yet the Bush administration continued to deny that such a decision had been made, and they continue to claim that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
The significance of the info coming out of the UK lies soley in the fact that it documents what only the critics of the Bush adm. have been willing to say (all along) as the official US justification for invading Iraq continued its tour of Wonderland.
June 21st, 2005 at 8:28 am.