Whither the Downing Street Memo?

Watergate lurked within the depths of major US papers for ages before its scythe-weilding representative began knocking on Nixon administration doors. But it took a while to follow that fabled money and connect the dots that led to the Oval Office. Happily, that isn't the case with the Downing Street Memo, which in one brief document goes straight to the top. While it isn't "proof" of Bush™ funny business, it isn't hearsay either, and it is more than enough reason for an inquiry. In light of it, we may ask what many have been asking out here in the dark: Where is the second half of the investigation into intelligence failures on Iraq? Remember, we were promised a twofer: Part one dealt with the CIA et al. Part two was supposed to address the administration's use of that intelligence. And this is where Hersh's 2003 story and Downing Street kiss.

How this massive failure came to pass is complicated, and for that reason it is fascinating. I say this as a writer, not as an American. As an American, I've been pissed off about Iraq ever since Bush started marketing it as "regime change" instead of "overthrow." But as a writer, I'm drawn to ambiguity and complex behavior. People often like simple explanations, like "Bush lied." Well, yes, he did. And, like the sentence "Jesus wept," it's simple and direct. But it obscures the dualism in what really (?) happened: Bush™ lied, disinformed and disassembled, but he (They) also mixed their own koolaid and drank it. They intentionally, rhetorically established a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda that was insubstantial at best while cutting out contrary analyses, goading the CIA into giving them what they wanted to hear and stovepiping intelligence so They'd get the raw, unanalyzed, unvetted information, which is often wrong. This while holding the door open to the exiled Ahmad Chalabi, whom the CIA held in low regard--and, it turns out, with good reason. Chalabi fed Bush™ horseshit WMD sushi and may've been behind (via Iran-Contra's Michael Ledeen) the Niger yellowcake forgeries.

In other words, it was a threesome.

Far be it from me to speculate on whether this story will go the way of Watergate, because hope is a moody mistress. But the Senator that conservatives love to hate, Teddy Kennedy, has started squawking about the Downing Street Memo. This following John Kerry's remarks late last week that he was planning on publicly addressing the issue this week. And that following Rep. John Conyers' circulation of a letter to Bush about the memo and the citizens' groups call for a Congressional Iraq inquiry along with the call of a former Reagan Treasury official for Bush's head on an impeachment platter (festooned with Jelly Bellies, we hope).

I'm pretty ignorant about Washington, so I don't know what this means. But when a story this big is boiling and some powerful people in the gov't are bringing it up, it's bound to finally get more than 30 seconds on TV, esp. if the first step toward impeachment--an inquiry--is taken. It may go nowhere, but it will get some press, and any press that it gets will make it boil the faster. And that is not a good thing for President Bush.