Congressman Conyers:Thanks and a Few Items of Interest

I apologize for the scattershot quality of this post, but it seems to me that Friday is a good day to clean up loose ends (I also see in the comments section that many of you are hoping for a big clean up
of some big loose ends today).

As many of you probably know, I sent out an email to my list of supporters on Wednesday. I announced that I am running for re- election and brought people up to date on Karl Rove's campaign to make me the poster-child for what would go wrong if Democrats retake the House of Representatives. It was the first general email in which I have asked for financial support. I'll probably give out some final numbers in a later post, but suffice it to say that the response has been staggering. In the first day alone, the response was at a level unprecedented for a congressional campaign, nearly 1500 people contributed an average of $48, and it just keeps coming.

I am running for re-election, I do face opposition and I take every campaign seriously. If my own campaign allows me to do so, I also devote time, energy and resources to taking back the House and Senate and taking back our country. To all who have given financially, of your time and of your energy, know that I am profoundly grateful. I know some of the most loyal readers of this blog are getting organized and, as they say, we will be in touch when we come up for air.

Back to the Rove slime machine. As many of you know, I wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post yesterday about the Republicans scare tactics (reprinted in the San Francisco Chronicle today). The reaction has been interesting.
First, the humorous. On the right, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review's blog, playing off the title of the piece says "Re: No Rush to Impeachment. When I hear someone like Conyers say there's no rush , I translate that as 'we're going to take our own sweet time and enjoy every minute of it.'"

Just to set the record straight, I wrote the piece, but not the title (as Mr. Goldberg probably knows, the Washington Post writes the title), and his interpretation is certainly not what I meant in the piece. But, you have to give credit where credit is due -- it is a good zinger nonetheless. I guess I would reply that Mr. Goldberg was, as I recall, a bit player in pushing the greatest partisan witch hunt of our time, the Clinton impeachment. I think he may be engaging in what psychologists call "projection".

On the serious side, I wanted to point you to the excellent editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer today on this topic. Obviously, I am in agreement with it. More generally, in contrast to the left, on the right the reaction has been howls of outrage. It seems like the right is very invested in creating a boogeyman here. Don't they have any issues to run on?

Or do they know it is about oversight, not impeachment. In the end, that’s what I suspect Republicans really fear. The Administration is so used to getting their way with a rubber stamp GOP Congress, they are afraid of any accounting to the American people about their energy policy that has led to skyrocketing gas prices, their special interest Medicare bill, their no-bid contracts with Haliburton, and charges of intelligence manipulation in the run up to the Iraq War.

I also suspect that the Republican election year refrain -- we’re really bad, but the Democrats are worse -- won’t work.

http://www.conyersblog.us/

Editorial | Congress must do its job
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/14614603.htm

Good for Conyers :thumbsup:

candor. Love him so. He's one of the handful of legislators I can truly trust.

Bless him but how sad is that? That there are so few. It's pathetic. Thanks to three compromised elections we no longer have a representative legislature.

I won't get into who else is in the handful but it's a scarce minority of the so-called elected majority.

Just glad he's there with his relentless efforts.