Freedom from the press

Freedom from the press

It started with another leaked memo from the office of Prime Minister Tony Blair last November. Of course, Tony Blair dismissed the intial reports as a "conspiracy theory." The leakers, a Labor MP and an aide initially leaked the memo back in October 2004 to a British expatriate and member of the DNC with the hopes of influencing the 2004 election. Needless to say that didn't happen.

So we fast forward to November 2005. The Daily Mirror reports about the leaked memo and and that is when things started to get interesting. Now you have the blindsided Bush White House in denial mode called the allegations contained in the report as "outlandish". And we all know what happened next. The "outlandish" allegations were so serious the Labor MP and his aide have a trial date for leaking a secret memo and creating an "outlandish" "conspiracy theory."

Of course, it doesn't end here, or there. Apparently Al Jazeera wants to have a chat with Tony Blair. Apparently Al Jazeera has decided to hire an attorney for access to the transcripts of the Bush Blair meeting.

I can't help wonder if Bush was motivated to bomb Al Jazeera in Qatar after the (successful?) bombing of the Baghdad station in April 2003, and the bombing of the Palestine Hotel in some way motivated Bush to bomb Al Jazeera in Qatar? For those interested, the names of the dead journalists can be found here along with the names of the others that have died while covering the war in Iraq.