This from Howard Kurtz's latest excellent 'Media Backtalk' online discussion:

Long Beach, Calif.: Does the fact that #10 Downing St. and the BBC are at each other's throats over Iraqi intelligence bending make our press look like poodles by comparison?

Howard Kurtz: I wrote a column about this recently after returning from a trip to London. I wouldn't use the poodle word, since some American reporters have done some hard digging on the WMD issue. But the way the British press relentlessly pounds Tony Blair over Iraqi weapons does make the American media look tame by comparison. This is in part because the war was more unpopular in Britain, because the left wing of Blair's own party is rebelling against him and because the Fleet Street press has a long tradition of savaging politicians. In a way, I think there's been blowback across the Atlantic, prompting US news organizations to make this more of an issue.

(There's also an exchange later in the discussion about the US media failing to hold elected representatives accountable over the WMD issue, and whether this says more about the media or the public....)

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