Rove Questions Liberals' Sympathies

Downing Street Memo Watch

Jefferson Morley writes in his washingtonpost.com column: "The DSM story, as the top-secret British document it is known on the Internet, has legs because it really represents two stories: an emerging alternative history of how the United States came to attack Iraq and a story of how the New Media has usurped some of the Old Media's power to set the agenda."

Bob Deans of Cox News Service profiles a couple at the heart of the Internet campaign to call attention to the memo. " 'When the media in the United States just basically took a pass on it, we decided that we wanted to get it out there,' said Bob Fesmire, who writes press releases for an industrial company.

"Working from their home in Sunnyvale, Calif., Fesmire and his wife, Gina, a graphic designer, created a Web site called Downingstreet memo.com in early May, posted the memo and related information there and generated a mass e-mail campaign to urge reporters and editors across the country to keep the story alive."

Michael Smith , the British journalist to whom a series of memos were leaked, writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed today: "The way in which the intelligence was 'fixed' to justify war is old news.

"The real news is the shady April 2002 deal to go to war, the cynical use of the U.N. to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress."

Today's Calendar

Bush attends another "conversation on Social Security" this morning, this time not too far away -- at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Md. He's being accompanied by comedian Ben Stein , Blair Class of 1962.

Around 1:45 p.m. ET he's expected to make a statement on CAFTA.

Eye on Ohio

Could Ohio have gone for Kerry?

James Dao writes in the New York Times about a new study for the Democratic National Committee which suggests that Republicans had tried to suppress the vote in heavily Democratic districts in Ohio.

James Drew and Steve Eder wrote in the Toledo Blade on Sunday: "In the final weeks of the 2004 presidential race, the nation focused on Ohio as both campaigns carefully choreographed every move by their candidates, knowing one misstep could throw the keys to the White House into the hands of the opponent. . . .

"At the same time - beneath the surface and out of public view - allegations were swirling that Tom Noe had laundered contributions into President Bush's campaign, and facts were emerging that the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation had lost $215 million meant for injured workers in a Bermuda hedge-fund.

"Now, more than six months later, those bombshells have created the biggest state government scandal in decades in Ohio. Democrats are charging that Republican leaders suppressed the potentially explosive information until all the votes were counted to save the President's re-election campaign."

Ticking Off North Korea

Burt Herman writes for the Associated Press: "North Korea condemned President Bush for meeting a prominent defector detained as a child in a prison camp, saying Thursday the move chilled the atmosphere for a return to nuclear disarmament talks. . . .

"Bush met last week at the White House with Kang Chol Hwan, a defector now working as a journalist in the South and author of 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang,' detailing his life in a North Korean prison where he was incarcerated as a child with his family."

NBC Exclusive?

Washington media blogger Garrett M. Graff writes that the White House press corps is "in an uproar" over what he describes as an exclusive deal with Laura Bush's press secretary that gives NBC exclusive video coverage of the first lady's upcoming trip to Africa.

Briefing Question of the Day

From yesterday's briefing with press secretary Scott McClellan:

"Q Scott, can you disavow me of the notion that the 'sharpening the focus' message you said the President was going to engage so far looks and sounds like summer reruns? What's new or what will be new in style or substance?"

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you heard a new speech today where the President was sharpening his focus on the economic agenda. . . . "