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If there's one thing left wingers love, it's a good, old-fashioned conspiracy. Give them a small nibble of a "claim" of wrong doing against the current White House, conservatives, or Republicans, and the left wing fringe will pounce into action. Facts? Data? Evidence? Those items are simply minor inconveniences to their "analysis" of right wing efforts to rule the world, steal elections, plant White House reporters, or a host of other perceived dirty deeds.

Like chum in a pool of sharks, the left has been stirred into a frenzy over the so-called "Downing Street" memo. This document, written by a British foreign policy official, chronicles a meeting among British officials including Prime Minister Tony Blair. The memo conveys a sense of the direction America was heading in regard to dealing with Saddam Hussein and Iraq, prior to the commencement of military operations. The memo contains a passage that the left is now calling the "smoking gun" that they say shows President Bush purposely manipulated intelligence information to build the case for war. Once again, the left wing zealots are putting facts and evidence aside and letting their conspiracy theory fears run wild.

The memo in question was written by Matthew Rycroft on July 23, 2002. Rycroft, an aide to British foreign policy advisor David Manning, describes a "perceptible shift in attitude" of American officials with regard to Iraq and adds the following:

"Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Rycroft added that National Security Council was losing patience with United Nations deliberations on Iraq and suggested that there was little discussion in Washington "of the aftermath after military action." However, the comment of "intelligence and facts" being "fixed" is what has the left spun up. According to their thinking, this "proves" that Bush lied about Iraq and doctored the intelligence to support his case. What the left refuses to acknowledge is that along with public statements by both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, and several independent investigations, no evidence has ever been presented to support the claims by the left wing fringe.

In comments to reporters in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Blair reminded the audience that the memo in question was written before the coalition went before the U.N. It was through the U.N. process of debate and resolutions (and Saddam Hussein's noncompliance) that Blair says resulted in eventual military action and Saddam's removal from power.

"No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all," Blair said, responding to a reporter's question. "Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn't do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action."

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