When the National Intelligence Estimate undermined months of overheated presidential rhetoric, it didn’t take long before the political world realized Bush had been talking up an Iranian threat that didn’t really exist. This problem was compounded through a series of clumsy lies — about when the president learned about Iran halting its nuclear weapons program, what he was told in August, and whether he was warned by intelligence officials about the utility of saber-rattling.
Watching last week’s press briefings, it was pretty obvious White House reporters recognized the president’s dissembling for what it was, sloppy and ham-fisted lying. Yesterday, however, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius explained his belief that all of this is a “non-story.” (TP has video)
MATTHEWS: Had you — had you gotten the word in August as a reporter that there was going to be a big change in our assessment of the nuclear threat from Iran downward, there was going to be less of threat estimate, what would you have asked as a follow-up ?
Mr. IGNATIUS: Well, you know, I would have wanted the — to let the analysts finish the job. I mean, I think in some ways this is a non-story. They come to Bush, they say, “Mr. President, we’ve got some startling new intelligence. We’re trying to figure out what it means. We’ll try to figure out whether it might be a deliberate attempt to deceive us, so let us work on this,” and the president says, “OK, go finish up.”
A lot of us get frustrated when it seems media personalities dismiss news stories that seem pretty interesting, but Ignatius’ comments are reminder that some of the establishment types simply have different priorities.
But in this case, Ignatius is downplaying a legitimate story by repackaging it into something mundane.
As Greg Sargent put it:
This is pure shillery. Ignatius is completely misstating the crux of what happened last week. The issue isn’t whether intel officials told Bush that they needed to solidify their intel; they did. Rather, it’s that Bush said last week that he hadn’t been briefed until very recently on the general thrust of the intel — which was that Iran might have shuttered its nuke program — when in fact he had been briefed about it much earlier, as his press secretary subsequently admitted.
Hmmm. To me it seems like a story that the same President who misled the nation into a war once already by hyping a non-threat was again caught dissembling on what he knew and when about another nuke threat. But to Ignatius it’s just a big yawner — a “non-story.”
And that’s really the point. Finding another example of the president lying isn’t particularly earth-shattering — Bush’s mendacity is rather routine — the point is that the president spent months exaggerating an imminent threat that didn’t exist. Any DC journalist who doesn’t see that as newsworthy might want to consider a new profession.
Indeed, in the same program, Ignatius went on to argue that the White House was so pleased by the NIE that Bushies were anxious to release its conclusions to the public. That, of course, doesn’t make any sense at all, and contradicts practically everything we’ve learned since the news broke a week ago today.
Of course, Ignatius didn’t face any real push-back for making this silly claims on a nationally televised public-affairs show, because that’s just now how the game is played. Media personalities share frequently-nonsensical insights, no one asks any questions, the public is either confused or changing the channel, and the political media carousel goes round and round.