Demagogue

Dutch for wake up! I'm somewhat cheered by the fact that the British cabinet memo story isn't dying completely, although frankly it's never been very much alive in the U.S. press from what I can tell. And it's time for American reporters to wake the f*** up and ask the very basic question posed by House Democrats in this letter to Dubya (pdf).

Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

I've searched the White House's press briefings and found no references at all to the memo (using British and Blair as search terms in separate searches). The briefings include not only hacks' regular sessions with Scott McClellan, but also--since the memo's publication in the Times of London--briefings and a "gaggle" with Condoleezza Rice and her former deputy at the NSC, now National Security Advisor himself, Stephen Hadley. In other words, the press has posed questions to two of the individuals who, if the memo is accurate and based on what we already know from other sources, would have been principally involved in "fixing" the intelligence and the facts to support a war, as the memo said was the plan as of July 2002. And, so far as I can tell, none of the reporters has even mentioned the memo, let alone asked a very simple and obvious question:

Do you or anyone in your Administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?

The Dems put that question on the table. But it's not going to be answered unless the press starts demanding an answer. A minimally competent press corps would have done so long before now.