Pressing Basement Revolution(what DSM hearings didn't address,but NEED to)

[Gloria]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050617/pressing_the_basement_revolution.php


Pressing The Basement Revolution



Like many people, the last-minute change of location for John Conyers' hearing on the Downing Street Memo forced me to watch the event on C-Span 3 . The perspective it gave me, however, was important. Viewing the hearings through the lens of the television camera combined with today's coverage of the event in the papers made me realize just what the effort gained and just what the effort left on the table.

First, the good news. With the exception of the embarassingly cynical coverage by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, the Associated Press, The New York Times, CNN, and the The Guardian all covered the hearings as the serious political development it was.

snip

Now the criticism. My big beef with the hearings is that it smacked more of a teach-in than a dignified presentation of evidence to a panel of elected United States representatives in the Capitol Building.

snip

The Downing Street Memo reveals, for the first time, that the highest British officials, including the prime minister, were aware that the Bush administration was planning to "fix the facts" around the policy, i.e., to deceive the Congress and people of the United States into war. Deceiving the Congress is a felony, and it is the president who, in the March 19 Congressional Record , submitted to Congress his case for war. If that case is knowingly false, the president has commited a felony that is an impeachable offense.

This hearing needed to make that case. While the president's polls are sagging, the Republican control of Congress ensures that it will take a bombshell to establish official hearings. Not to mention that the distance between poor job performance and a belief that the president committed a felony is enormous.

This hearing did not make that case—but not because that case cannot be made. It certainly can.

snip

Ultimately, this effort will not be successful unless it produces U.S. documents that attest to the manipulation of intelligence. That will happen in one of two ways. Either someone will leak them or someone will subpoena them. The best way to move forward now is to create a credible series of hearings that even more people can take seriously. That will allow the next Mark Felt to feel confident that his or her risk will be worth it.
--Patrick Doherty | Friday 12:34 PM

[goclark]

1. kick

The drip drip drip is beginning.

[Gregorian]

2. I guess I just don't get it...

The cash register is empty; The clerk lies dead on the floor; Bush is standing there with the gun still warm in his hand. OK, that doesn't prove anything. Just maybe someone else did the crime, and he traded places. Just what else does it take to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he misled us? Yellow cake, Plame, DSM, kicking out the weapons inspectors, lying about wmd "in and around Tikrit", starting a war without an imminent threat, tricking Congress into letting him violate the Constitution regarding the decision to go to war, and a boatload of other related things. And we aren't even on to the fraudulent election. Or the myriad of unexplained mysteries of 9/11, which he couldn't be bothered to testify about.

How can someone like my 80 year old dad, know on the first day that bush took office that we would be having a war. There was no reasonable doubt in his mind that this man was going to be trouble. I know that's not a court of law. But just what is a reasonable doubt?


Bedtime for me. Let tomorrow bring down the bush family.

[Mythsaje]

4. I've said it before

he needs to be standing there with his pinky in his mouth cackling like Dr. Evil. THEN the MSM will take notice that he's a maniacal would-be dictator with delusions of grandeur.

Until then, he's just our (un)elected President.

[snowbear]

3. Mary Carey found a new job for W