Tom Engelhardt and Mark Danner detail the outrages behind and resulting from the Downing Street memos. Danner's response here to Knight Ridder's John Walcott also appears in the July 14 New York Review of Books, and Tom Engelhardt's piece appears on his blog. Here's Engelhardt:

Let's just add that if Post editorialists and Times journalists can't tell the difference between scattered, generally anonymously sourced, pre-war reports that told us of early Bush administration preparations for war and actual documents on the same subject emerging from the highest reaches of the British government, from the highest intelligence figure in that government who had just met with some of the highest figures in the U.S. government, and was immediately reporting back to what, in essence, was a "war cabinet"—well, what can you say?

Danner writes (link is from source):

The Knight Ridder pieces bring up a larger issue. It is a source of some irony that one of the obstacles to gaining recognition for the Downing Street memo in the American press has been the largely unspoken notion among reporters and editors that the story the memo tells is "nothing new." I say irony because we see in this an odd and familiar narrative from our current world of "frozen scandal"—so-called scandals, that is, in which we have revelation but not a true investigation or punishment: scandals we are forced to live with. A story is told the first time but hardly acknowledged (as with the Knight Ridder piece), largely because the broader story the government is telling drowns it out. When the story is later confirmed by official documents, in this case the Downing Street memorandum, the documents are largely dismissed because they contain "nothing new."

Part of this comes down to the question of what, in our current political and journalistic world, constitutes a "fact."... There's lots more.

Speaking of NYRB, and of widespread (in this case unfounded) panic, did you know about the publishing arm's reissue of Edward Gorey's version of The War of the Worlds? I didn't, and it looks fantastic! They write:

In 1960, Edward Gorey prepared a set of his inimitable pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate a new edition of [H.G.] Wells's The War of the Worlds for the legendary Looking Glass Library. Characteristically quirky, elegant, and entrancing, Gorey's visual take on Wells's seminal tour de force has been unavailable for close to fifty years. This special hardcover edition from NYRB Classics brings back for today's readers a richly rewarding collaboration between two modern masters of all that's wonderful and strange.

When I'm able to post PDFs, I'll put up my interview with Gorey from just before he died. He collected rusted metal objects and had a tangly garden, and he wore the heaviest rings I've ever seen on a real person. When one slipped off and hit the floor, I'm pretty sure it made a dent. He talked long after the tapes ran out (about, for instance, Kenneth Koch and Joyce Carol Oates—those were separate anecdotes), and boy, is he missed.

How We Went to War: What the Downing Street Memos Demonstrate [via History News Network]
What the 'Downing Street' Memos Show [Christian Science Monitor]

Categories: Danner, Gorey, Extracurriculars