Big Brass Lazy

I've been blogging for over a year now, and I've just now bothered to find out how to post pictures. This research project, which I put off undertaking for 18 months, took about 90 seconds. Ah, the perils of procrastination. A few more of those and I'll be dead.

Anyway, here is my first post upholding my responsibilities in the

Big Brass Blog is a coalition of America-haters and terrorist sympathizers who wonder if perhaps someone ought to ask the president why he told us he was trying to avoid war when in fact he was doing everything in his considerable power to bring it about, no matter whether his feeble justifications fit the facts or whether the facts had to be fixed around the policy of aggressive war at all costs.

Now it seems Bush has been asked, and it has created some embarrassing questions for both Bush and the American media. The Sunday Times attempts to posit some pretty pitiful excuses for the conduct of the U.S. press, but it's clear the report isn't very sympathetic to those excuses.

We here at the Ape Man can hardly blame them.

The US media, stung by a series of recent scandals involving reporters who made up stories, has also been implementing ever more cautious editorial policies about anonymous sources and unofficial leaks. The media that gave birth to Deep Throat – the legendary Watergate whistleblower – was in danger of becoming the media of Deaf Ears.

Ouch. Continuing directly:

One senior US editor frankly admitted this week that his paper hadn’t touched the Sunday Times memo because it hadn’t been able to obtain a copy from its own sources. Jim Cox of USA Today said his newspaper had tried calling Downing Street, but not surprisingly had failed to obtain "explicit confirmation of [the memo’s] authenticity".

"We can't do a story on this because the people implicated in launching an illegal war on false pretenses wouldn't explicity authenticate the incriminating evidence, though they didn't deny its authenticity." Some top-notch journalism there.

It was not until President Bush was asked about the memo on Tuesday that USA Today mentioned it to its readers for the first time. So frustrated were some of the President’s opponents at the US media’s silence that one left-wing website, Democrats.com, offered a $1,000 reward to any reporter ready to tackle the President on the issue. The Reuters reporter who posed the question on Tuesday was unaware of the reward and has no intention of collecting it.

Funny stuff. Kudos to Democrats.com on that little ironic joke.

Yet now the controversy is out in the open and there is no further doubting of the memo’s authenticity, or excuse for media foot-dragging.

Unequivocally introducing the WaPo and NYT to the Sunday Times' pimp hand. Ba-wap!

[The Ape Man recognizes that the use of the metaphor "pimp hand" is misogynist. But it's funny. The Ape Man regrets its antifeminist devotion to pimp comedy.]