Conyers: The Drumbeat Continues on DSM (follow up next week)

A couple of more stories to bring to your attention. The Knight Ridder news service has done exemplarary work on this issue, running several early and useful articles. Today, they ran another good article, detailing how the American public is souring on the war. They included a particularly good passage ridiculing the White House press office dismissing my investigation, since I voted against military action in the first place: "Did you catch the irony? Conyers has no credibility to challenge the president's actions toward Iraq, the White House argues, because Conyers has opposed the war from the beginning. Yet just a few months ago, the Bush people ridiculed Sen. John Kerry because Kerry allegedly supported the war before being against it - remember all the giddy supporters chanting ``Flip-flop! Flip-flop!''

I also would point out a great opinion piece in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled "Bush's pre-emptive war pre-empted Congress." Everyone of you who submits pieces like this to their local media, is doing a valuable service in keeping this critical issue in the public eye.

I am working on follow up to the hearing, and hope to have more to share with you next week.

Impeachment probe needed

As a citizen, I am very concerned that my president has taken us to war illegally. The recent news stories about the Downing Street memos have really made me question the integrity of our president.
I do not argue the point that Saddam was a criminal himself. He gassed his own people on countless occasions and engaged in illegal wars. My concern is that my president lied about the reasons for the United States to go to war in Iraq. In my mind, this is a much more serious crime than marital infidelity.
President Clinton was tried for perjury for lying about his sexual relations while in office. If we can place a president on trial for not being truthful about his relationships, shouldn't we at least look into the high crime of sending a nation to war illegally? The crime of taking a nation to war under false pretenses is much more serious, in my mind, than lying about your sexual life.
I don't approve of either. Both men deserve the scrutiny of public hearings and trials. President Bush should face an impeachment inquiry. His crimes are much more serious and harmful to the people of the U.S., if the accusations prove to be true.
I am an independent voter who looks at issues rather than parties. I understand that opposing the Republican Party in Utah is a difficult proposition, but I really feel that we need to inform our congressional delegates to do just that and support hearings on the memos and even impeachment proceedings if necessary.

Oland Thompson
Ogden

Action: Contact Senators to SIGN Kerry DSM letter
by MH in PA
Wed Jun 15th, 2005 at 07:37:01 PDT
Raw Story informs us that there is definitely a letter being passed around the Senate for signatures: Kerry confidantes say senator is seeking others to cosign letter on Downing minutes.

Folks, we have work to do! Let's contact our Senators and let them know that we want them to sign onto Senator Kerry's letter, which requests the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate the Downing Street Minutes.

I know not everyone here is a big fan of the tall guy from Massachusetts. But it seems he is the one carrying the ball on this issue in the Senate. Is getting more attention on the Downing Street Minutes worth setting aside our differences and backing him up on this one issue?

Please read the details below, if you care about holding Bush and cronies accountable for what they've done to our country.

Diaries :: MH in PA's diary :: :: Trackback ::
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UPDATE: Please also see this diary, Awaken the MSM: Downing Street Memo Alert (6/15); which is the regular daily "action" diary from the folks at downingstreetmemo.com. See my exchange in the comments with highacidity to see why we weren't "coordinated" this morning. We're all together now though, I think!
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From the article:

Two confidants of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) told RAW STORY Tuesday that he is privately seeking other senators to cosign a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee on the Downing Street minutes.

"Kerry has been enlisting other senators to sign onto a letter to the intelligence committee seeking answers to the Downing Street memo," said one, "so Americans can trust that security decisions are driven by facts and responsible intelligence, not by political calculation."

<snip>
The reactions from the Massachusetts senators come after action in the House. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) penned a response to the Downing Street minutes five days after it leaked to the British Sunday Times, demanding that President Bush answer new questions about the contents of the secret document.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), who signed Conyers letter, told RAW STORY the missive is part of a plan to "keep agitating the public" and to convince more Republicans and Democrats in Congress to act in response to the Downing Street minutes.



The Raw Story article follows a similar report in Tuesday's Washington Post, "Democrats Looking for a Road Map to Downing Street":



...Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) has come out swinging. A senior aide close to Kerry said this week that Kerry is circulating a letter about the memo among Democratic senators before sending it to Bush. The aide predicted that Kerry would make the letter public in the next few days.
Some in blogworld have observed that it's been 2 weeks since Senator Kerry promised to "raise the issue"; and seem to want to know, what's taking so long? Well, the good news is that the story seems to only be getting stronger every day, judging by the steady increase in Google News hits that I get on the query "Downing Street Memo." I posted my take on this concern, and Kerry's approach, in a diary yesterday at Booman Tribune:


I think a lot of folks in the blogosphere smell blood in the water and want to go in for the kill, with an immediate, direct strike. I don't think that's Kerry's way, though. And given what happened with the TANG memos, I can't say I blame him - or the rest of our Senate leaders, who are no doubt working with him on this. Let it seep into the public's consciousness gradually. Raise it in a way that cannot be written off as "strident" or "crazy" - like the RW spin machine tried to do when Kerry first mentioned it, by immediately trying to say he was calling for impeachment - so that he would be written off as crazy, even though he never said anything like that. If you've been watching the google news hits, you've seen we are gaining ground every day. To me, that means we're doing something right.
drip... drip... drip...


And as Pamela at LUTD observes,



Raw Story ... claimed that the statement came "after nearly two weeks of silence from the senator," implying that by not speaking to the media that Kerry has been silent, when indeed he has not been silent, since he has been talking to his Senate colleagues.
With John Kerry, silence does not mean he has been inactive....

In addition, John Kerry has had a full schedule in the past week, one set not by Democrats but by the Republicans who control the Senate.




Pamela's post then links to previous posts on several of the initiatives the Senator has been working on just these last few days; I also posted a summary for the impatient ones a few days ago. And apparently Raw Story missed the second media teaser that Kerry sent out, last Tuesday (hmmm...weekly reminders, near the beginning of the news cycle each week? We're learning.)

So, the bottom line is: Kerry promised to raise the issue, and he evidently has raised the issue, even if not (immediately) in the way some here expected or hoped. He probably will make a "floor statement" when he thinks the time is right; but to get to that point, where he is ready to present the letter and formally call for an official investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee - he needs some other Senators to back him up.


That's where we come in. Contact your Senators - today. Ask them to SIGN Senator Kerry's letter. Ask them to stand up for accountability and honesty, and call for an investigation of the Downing Street Minutes.


Some final thoughts, for the naysayers:

Some, at DU and elsewhere, have posited that Kerry is only doing this to "undermine Conyers" or just "take credit". Well, I don't see any evidence of this. Others have stated that it's typical for the House and Senate to work separately in a situation like this, then join together after support has been raised separately in the two Houses. If that's true, then it's clear that Conyers is taking the lead in the House, and Kerry, Kennedy, and Boxer are leading as a triumvirate in the Senate, each with different targets. Why should we, the (relatively) uninformed masses, presume that they aren't working as a team? For what we're paying them, they'd better be.

And regardless of your past disappointments with things Kerry, or anyone else, has said or not said, done or not done: can we just for this issue at least, set aside those disappointments and even anger, and work together to accomplish a common goal - doing everything possible and using every resource we can, to wake up the media and this country to how the Bush Administration misled us into a war that is costing us hugely, in lives, resources, and increased hatred of America in the world? Please?



I guess if I haven't convinced you yet, nothing will, so I'll stop begging now. Please support this effort, and contact your Senators. Thanks.

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