A couple weeks ago..."Empty Wheel" (Marcy Wheeler) posted about how the Pat Tillman Death ...if it was Investigated...could result in "Joe/Jane Sixpack" finally understanding why DEM INVESTIGATION IS SO IMPORTANT. She said that the "US Attorney Firings" wouldn't get traction with most of America but when a Sports Hero like Pat Tillman's Death starts to get investigated that folks would WAKE UP and be able to understand BushCo. and WHY it's important that Dems are INVESTIGATING.
CNN'S BLITZER just ANNOUNCED that Henry Waxman will INTERVIEW FOUR WITNESSES about PAT TILlMAN'S DEATH!
Here's what MARCY SAID:
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July 15, 2007
A Field Position Gameby emptywheel
Mark Kleiman argues that the Democrats should see BushCo's refusal to turn over proof that they buried details about Pat Tillman's death as a godsend. This is the scandal, he argues, over which the Democrats should choose to confront Bush. This is a Godsend for the Democrats in Congress. The committees shouldn't compromise at all; this is the case we want to go to war over, in the courts and the court of public opinion. The Tillman cover-up is a far smaller scandal than the U.S. Attorney firings, but it's much easier to understand.
Most of the country is only vaguely aware of the Tillman case, since the press has been not very interested in advertising how badly it was fooled, and how supinely it participated in the "Wag the Dog" fooling of the public. But if the facts got out there, everyone, including most of the Republican base, would be outraged. Publicity about the fight over documents and testimony is also publicity about Tillman's "friendly fire" death and the effort to cover it up, so it's a no-win situation for the White House.
Moreover, even the wingnuts are going to have a hard time claiming with a straight face that the President needs to protect the confidentiality of the process by which he decides to ... mislead the public.To a degree, I agree with Kleiman, as do some of the commenters in this thread. Any time you can manage to put a political issue before the NFL's fans, the issue will have a lot more resonance than something that remains strictly political. And it's just a matter of weeks before Keith Olbermann sits before Sunday Night football fans (with Tiki Barber at his side--huzzah!!)--I suspect Olbermann is more than capable of explaining the stakes, if the NFL takes an interest in this issue. In other words, this is an issue that can grab the attention of Joe Sixpack in a way that politicization of our judicial system or the deliberate outing of a CIA spy cannot.
Furthermore, I've got a lot more faith that Henry Waxman can pursue a fight with the Administration more effectively than the House Judiciary (the verdict's still out on the Senate Judiciary).
And finally, I always pay attention when mr. emptywheel gets wrapped up in coverage. And he watched the coverage of Waxman's first Tillman hearing closely (he's a football fan, but doesn't really know of Tillman's career). The pageantry of the stock footage of Tillman--thanks largely to the Administration's hagiography of Tillman when he enlisted--makes for powerful TV, even accompanying something so boring as a Congressional hearing.http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:hksv-JsQxzIJ:thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/07/field-position.html+Pat+Tillman,+EmptyWheel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
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