Hugh Hewitt: What Memo?

Weekly Standard ^ | 11/13/2003 12:00:00 AM | Hugh Hewitt

[swilhelm73]

SEAN HANNITY'S big scoop is not generating the headlines it ought to. The memo Hannity obtained and made public that details the plans by Democratic staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee to politicize the committee's investigations in the service of partisan politics far overshadows in importance Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld's memo pushing the Pentagon to think about the hard problems ahead in the war on terrorism, but it has received significantly less attention than the Rumsfeld memo did.

Why?

Three reasons could account for the disparity in treatment:

The most obvious explanation is that elite media is populated by left-leaning reporters and editors not inclined to throw spotlights on a memo the contents of which Democratic senator Zell Miller has called the "first cousin of treason."

A second explanation focuses on the fact that Hannity--a radio and television guy, not a print fellow--got the scoop, and newspapers hate being upstaged by talking heads.

The third theory is the most plausible: The Democratic memo reveals that much of what the media has been focusing on for the past six months has been a set-up job. The staff and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been selling story after story (think the Niger yellowcake and "imminent" threat controversies). Out of whole cloth, they have contrived an ambiguous but ominous speculation about the Bush administration's sinister motives for invading Iraq. Now, through this one memo, they have been revealed as nothing short of cynical political operatives. And the reporters who ran with their hints

[LiteKeeper]

bump - lest we forget!

[Political Junkie Too]

Your post cut off at the picture.

-PJ

[Bonaparte]

A liberal news blackout on a democrat scandal? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!

[PhiKapMom]

The third theory is the most plausible: The Democratic memo reveals that much of what the media has been focusing on for the past six months has been a set-up job. The staff and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been selling story after story (think the Niger yellowcake and "imminent" threat controversies). Out of whole cloth, they have contrived an ambiguous but ominous speculation about the Bush administration's sinister motives for invading Iraq. Now, through this one memo, they have been revealed as nothing short of cynical political operatives. And the reporters who ran with their hints

Thanks for posting this article. Check out this Third theory in this post for why the media is ignoring the DemocRAT Intelligence Memo. Looks like some of the media were suckered by the democRATs for the last six months and don't want to admit that fact!

[swilhelm73]

So I did...here is the rest

--
are revealed as breathless and easily manipulated amateurs.

The media has to ignore the memo because to focus on it would be to focus on their own gullibility.

There is no escaping the hard fact that the Democratic staff embraced the "verdict first, trial later" approach to oversight. They were on a mission to undermine the president and his administration, no matter what the intelligence showed or will show, and the senators did nothing to rein in their out-of-control staff.

The committee's Democratic members are discredited, as are their previous and future attacks on the president. When it comes to the national security, the statements of Democratic senators simply cannot be trusted. The proof is in the memo.

[Bernard Marx]

Looks like some of the media were suckered by the democRATs for the last six months and don't want to admit that fact!

Suckered? Hardly! The major media are the willing handmaidens of the neocommunists. They just don't like being caught at it. (Sort've like the old Tom Lehrer song about the guy who majored in animal husbandry until they caught him at it).

[Am I Blue?]

Tom Lehrer intro to "In Old Mexico":

I'm sure you're all aware that this week is National Gall Bladder Week, and so as sort of an educational feature at this point I thought I would acquaint you with some of the results of my recent researches into the career of the late Doctor Samuel Gall, inventor of the gall bladder, which certainly ranks as one of the more important technological advances since the invention of the joy buzzer and the dribble glass.

Dr. Gall's faith in his invention was so dramatically vindicated last year, as you no doubt recall, when, for the first time in history in a nationwide poll, the gall bladder was voted among the top ten organs. His educational career began, interestingly enough, in agricultural school, where he majored in animal husbandry, until they... caught him at it one day... whereupon he switched to the field of medicine, in which field he also won renown as the inventor of gargling, which prior to that time had been practiced only furtively by a remote tribe in the Andes who passed the secret down from father to son as part of their oral tradition.

He soon became a specialist, specializing in diseases of the rich. He was therefore able to retire at an early age... to the land we all dream about: sunny Mexico, of course, the last part of which is completely irrelevant, as was the whole thing, I guess, except it's a rather sneaky way of getting into this next type of popular song, which is one of those things about that magic and romantic land south of the border.

[MeekOneGOP]

Full article text ...

What Memo?
The reason the mainstream media is downplaying the Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee memo is because it implicates mainstream journalists.
by Hugh Hewitt
11/13/2003 12:00:00 AM

SEAN HANNITY'S big scoop is not generating the headlines it ought to. The memo Hannity obtained and made public that details the plans by Democratic staff on the Senate Intelligence Committee to politicize the committee's investigations in the service of partisan politics far overshadows in importance Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld's memo pushing the Pentagon to think about the hard problems ahead in the war on terrorism, but it has received significantly less attention than the Rumsfeld memo did.

Why?

Three reasons could account for the disparity in treatment:

The most obvious explanation is that elite media is populated by left-leaning reporters and editors not inclined to throw spotlights on a memo the contents of which Democratic senator Zell Miller has called the "first cousin of treason."

A second explanation focuses on the fact that Hannity--a radio and television guy, not a print fellow--got the scoop, and newspapers hate being upstaged by talking heads.

The third theory is the most plausible: The Democratic memo reveals that much of what the media has been focusing on for the past six months has been a set-up job. The staff and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been selling story after story (think the Niger yellowcake and "imminent" threat controversies). Out of whole cloth, they have contrived an ambiguous but ominous speculation about the Bush administration's sinister motives for invading Iraq. Now, through this one memo, they have been revealed as nothing short of cynical political operatives. And the reporters who ran with their hints

are revealed as breathless and easily manipulated amateurs.

The media has to ignore the memo because to focus on it would be to focus on their own gullibility.

There is no escaping the hard fact that the Democratic staff embraced the "verdict first, trial later" approach to oversight. They were on a mission to undermine the president and his administration, no matter what the intelligence showed or will show, and the senators did nothing to rein in their out-of-control staff.

The committee's Democratic members are discredited, as are their previous and future attacks on the president. When it comes to the national security, the statements of Democratic senators simply cannot be trusted. The proof is in the memo.

Hugh Hewitt is the host of The Hugh Hewitt Show, a nationally syndicated radio talkshow, and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard. His new book, In, But Not Of, has just been published by Thomas Nelson.

© Copyright 2003, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

[MeekOneGOP]

Full article text on #9 ...

[MeekOneGOP]

Hugh Hewitt

[MeekOneGOP]

Thanks for the ping ! Full text on #9 ...

[PhiKapMom]

I was trying to be kind -- your comments are much more on the mark!

[PhiKapMom]

Thanks for posting the full text on the thread. This needs to be read by everyone! This has been planned for months and the media went along willingly!

[MeekOneGOP]

You're welcomed. The media suppressing a story because they could get egg on their face.

Imagine that !! ha ha !

[onyx]

BOOKMARKED. Excellent work Meek.

[onyx]

So disgusting. Our own media --- not work a damn.

Backhoe: for your *files* #9

[MeekOneGOP]

Thank you !

[My2Cents]

It bears repeating:

The third theory is the most plausible: The Democratic memo reveals that much of what the media has been focusing on for the past six months has been a set-up job. The staff and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been selling story after story (think the Niger yellowcake and "imminent" threat controversies). Out of whole cloth, they have contrived an ambiguous but ominous speculation about the Bush administration's sinister motives for invading Iraq. Now, through this one memo, they have been revealed as nothing short of cynical political operatives. And the reporters who ran with their hints.

In fact, that's such a good statement that everyone should simply copy and paste it to a letter to the editor of their local newspaper.

[Wilhelm Tell]

I predict that one of two things will happen next
1. The mainstream media will bury this story -- most people will never hear of it.
2. If #1 fails and too many people know that something happened (though many could not say exactly what happened), the media will go on to the next step: The media will all of the sudden say that the Republicans stole an important document "having to do with national security" and planned to exploit it for political advantage. The "honest" Democrats will of course be "outraged" and say that this is the "worst scandal since Watergate." The nature of the leaked document will never be revealed -- the media will only say vaguely that it had something to do with "national security." The spin machine and the compliant media will say that this is proof that Republicans cannot be trusted with matters of national security. I can smell this 1,000 miles away -- what should be exposed as a Democrat scandal will instead be spun as being the fault of those scheming Republicans. I predict that in two weeks the media will go on the offensive with their spin doctors.