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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (45175)	5/18/2004 12:01:53 PM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793838

Addendum. Seems like the answer to the question that Hewitt didn't ask was to be found in the Post in one of those pieces that appeared before he asserted that the Post had nothing on the subject. These two items appeared as part of two on-line discussions yesterday afternoon. The answers given would likely approximate the buzz in the newsroom at the time when the Post was considering whether the story warranted an extra. <<Virginia: Sarin gas has been found in a bomb near Baghdad. Is this to be considered the discovery of WMDs? Bathsheba Crocker: We don't yet have much information about this discovery. It's too early to say whether it came from Iraq or was brought in from outside, who used it, etc. So it's not yet being considered the discovery of WMD.>> and <<Minneapolis, Minn.: Now that Sarin was found in a roadside bomb from a type of shell that had been declared destroyed -- does this change any of the reporting and claims that Saddam never had Weapons of Mass Destruction and a chemical weapons program? washingtonpost.com: Sarin Detected in Roadside Bomb in Iraq (AP, May 17) Howard Kurtz: I don't know. I suppose one question is whether this was newly imported stuff or part of a previously existing Saddam stockpile.>> From that I infer that the Post thought the story as known at the time was not ready for prime time. IMO, the story is potentially important for two reasons. One is that the discovery of sarin in this weapon would present a new battlefield risk for our soldiers. The second is that the discovery of sarin could change the WMD story. The first one might warrant an extra. It would for sure had anyone been killed. Given how frugal the Post is about extras, I would think they would judge that this could wait until the morning when more was known. The second IMO does not warrant an extra for just the same reasons why so many are fussing about the non-reporting. War advocates trumpeting "I told you so" over this minor event seems desperate and pathetic to me. They are only embarrassing themselves. I think that a responsible newspaper shouldn't want to play into that. BTW, the AP article referenced in one of the questions does not show up on the Post's search. Their AP search disappeared recently. So had Hewitt done a search, he might not have seen that particular story in the Post, although it was apparently there or Minneapolis wouldn't have seen it. He would, however, have seen the other references to the event.