Baghdad is Bush's Blue Dress - let's talk of impeachment

[Woodstock]

Unlike Clinton's blue dress, which involved the personal consensual sex lives of a man and a woman, Bush's blue dress involved life and death - and crippling injuries - for many Americans. More than 500 American lives were lost, and many more lost arms, legs, eyes, and the full use of their bodies. And then there are the devastating Iraqi losses. All for sheer greed and lust for power.

From Robert Scheer in the Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer27jan27,1,2870082.column?coll=la-home-utilities

Now, can we talk of impeachment? The rueful admission by former chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction or the means to create them at the time of the U.S. invasion confirms the fact that the Bush administration is complicit in arguably the greatest scandal in U.S. history. It's only because the Republicans control both houses of Congress that we hear no calls for a broad-ranging investigation of the type that led to the discovery of Monica Lewinsky's infamous blue dress.

In no previous instance of presidential malfeasance was so much at stake, both in preserving constitutional safeguards and national security. This egregious deception in leading us to war on phony intelligence overshadows those scandals based on greed, such as Teapot Dome during the Harding administration, or those aimed at political opponents, such as Watergate. And the White House continues to dig itself deeper into a hole by denying reality even as its lieutenants one by one find the courage to speak the truth.

A year after using his 2003 State of the Union address to paint Iraq's allegedly vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction as a grave threat to the U.S. and the world, Bush spent this month's State of the Union defending the war because "had we failed to act, the dictator's weapons of mass destruction programs would continue to this day." Bush said officials were still "seeking all the facts" about Iraq's weapons programs but noted that weapons searchers had already identified "dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities." Vice President Dick Cheney in interviews with USA Today and the Los Angeles Times echoed this fudging...

Yet three days after the State of the Union address, Kay quit and then began telling the world what the administration had denied since taking over the White House: That Hussein's regime was but a weak shadow of the military force it had been at the time of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, that he believed it had no significant chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs or stockpiles in place, and that the United Nations inspections and allied bombing in the '90s had been more effective at eroding the remnants of these programs than critics had thought...

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Note that he places the burden of failure on

intell and not on bu$h.

Note: by HE I meant kay, not the journalist who wrote the article.

[Woodstock]

2. Not true, read the whole article - I'm not referring to Kay

The author is placing the blame on Bush.

He mentions "the administration's systematic abuse of the facts."

And talks about 23 former U.S. intelligence experts who quit over what the administration did, and tell of "an administration that went to war for reasons that smack of empire-building, then constructed a false reality to sell it to the American people" in Robert Greenwald's "Uncovered."

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. Then he's telling different folks different stories

"Asked whether President Bush owed the nation an explanation for the gap between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said: 'I actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather than the president owing the American people.'"

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2370572

[Woodstock]

5. We are past what Kay says now - he gave us what we need

You are talking about Kay.

I'm talking about the author, and what we are saying.

Doesn't matter what excuses Kay makes now. We got the facts from him that we need. There is enough outrage from the intelligence community to dispute the excuses he trots out for Bush.

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. Facts will only help us in an actual trial or investigation

If this thing is tried in the media, the facts won't matter. :( The masses will still feel good about liberating the Iraqis from Saddam, and the WMD issue will be chalked up to a failure in the intel community.

Edited for typos.

[Woodstock]

7. OK, if your glass is half empty, give up

Gloom, despair, and agony.

Me, I'm going to make some noise. Isn't that what this board is for?

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

[GreenPartyVoter]

8. P.S. It's not that I don't want to sink Bu$h with this

I surely do. But my cynicism makes it hard to believe that we can. I'll help try, but deep down I feel it won't make much of a difference.

[NewJeffCT]

9. OK, I am sick and F-ing tired

I am sick and f-ing tired of this administration and all of their minions passing the buck. The president is the one in charge and should take full responsibility for everything that comes out of his office. A real president and a real man would take that responsibility.

They have elevated buck passing to an art form.

[TNOE]

3. To hell with impeachment -

he should be arrested - now!!!!!

[Abigail147]

10. Until you get a new Congress,

you ain't getting nothing.

[DemLikr]

11. But please tell me why Dem congresspeople aren't raising hell?

They're in the minority, but they're not voiceless and spineless!

Oh...sorry...I just remembered Tom Daschle is the Senate minority leader.

Never mind.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

13. Uh-huh...

I would like more than anything to see Bu$h out of office. But you hit on a very good point: who's gonna do it? I think the current crop of congressional democrats are too milk toast to put the Pres. up for impeachment. Sometimes in moments of reverie, I believe its because that the Dems have too many scruples. However, I think the current dems in congress (except for a few firebrands) are behaving like a beaten party, They've hardly any fight left.

The real strength of the Democratic party is right here! In the grass roots organizations like DU and TBTM. It is becoming our responsibility to motivate our leaders to set the impeachment ball rolling, if thats applicable. I don't know about you, but I'm convinced. We, the grassroots, needs to be the steel of the modern democrats and urge our hangdog leaders to action.

[maggrwaggr]

12. I disagree. 9/11 should be Bush's blue dress

who was in charge while America suffered its worst attack ever?

who sat and did absolutely nothing while such attack was underway?

who cowered like a chicken in airforce 1 immediately thereafter?

who didn't do his homework and actually read the memos that said such an attack was imminent?

who then proceeded to lie about those responsible?