Sen. Coleman defends Bush in call for impeachment

[katinmn]

It is nice that Hillary Clinton and John Kerry provided him with such nice talking points.
I think Congresscritters are getting lots of calls for impeachment. I will be responding to this letter with another phone call to Coleman's office.
Keep the pressure on!


Dear katinmn:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me concerning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush.

I do not believe the President's decision to invade Iraq is cause for initiation of impeachment proceedings, as President Bush did not "mislead" our country into war with Iraq. The President came to the conclusion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and represented a threat to the U.S. based on objective information provided by our intelligence agencies. He was not alone in his assessment. The majority of Congress, including members of both sides of the aisle, voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution (S.J. Res. 45) authorizing the President to use force in Iraq. When the Senate voted 77-23 on this resolution, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) stated, "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program." Additionally, Senator John Kerry (D-MA) stated that "according to the CIA's report, all U.S. intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons." Bipartisan consensus existed about the presence of a weapons program at the time of the coalition invasion in 2003. Furthermore, foreign intelligence agencies, such as those in Great Britain, Australia, and France had also concluded that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

Clearly, there were intelligence failures leading up to the war in Iraq. For this reason, the Senate Intelligence Committee completed an investigation on the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. In a bipartisan report issued on July 7, 2004, the Committee concluded that the intelligence assessment of Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction capabilities was not the result of political pressure. Other bipartisan investigations have also concluded that no political pressure was applied to intelligence analysts in their evaluation of Saddam's weapons programs.

I will continue to follow this important issue. While we may disagree at times, I appreciate hearing from you and hope you will not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you.

Sincerely,
Norm Coleman
United States Senate

[Danieljay]

1. write him back and call bullshit...

Most of those in congress received HAND PICKED intelligence only and did not have access to intelligence that was given to the Chimp. The intelligence provided to congress was filtered and screened to meet the agenda of the current administration and the corporations that stood to benefit from this war at the expense of the US Taxpayer and the lives of our men and women in uniform. This administration is the most corrupt we have ever seen. Anyone who supports it despite the evidence of corruption is a self centered ignorant fool.

[katinmn]

9. Oh, I plan to.

Just because he is a water carrier doesn't mean we can let him slide blithely along.

[dflprincess]

21. Reminds me I haven't emailed the weasel for a while

to tell him what he's done wrong lately. I'll remedy that tonight.

[katinmn]

30. Thanks. One thing about Mr. C. He always responds

It's a predictable response but it's better than being completely ignored.

[Zookeeper]

32. You're right, he does always respond...

along the lines of, "Blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. I'm still a Bush toadie."

[49jim]

2. Hey Norm,

It's easy to come to those conclusions when are given "cherry-picked" and intentionally false information!

[msongs]

3. since we believed bush's lies, bush is no longer responsible?

other senators supported the war because they believed bush's lies so therefore, bush is not responsible for
telling those lies in the first place?

norm coleman is a senator? must be a republican.

Msongs
www.msongs.com/democratsmugs.htm

[KyndCulture]

4. I got a similar letter today in the mail.

FU Norm... as usual.

[katinmn]

11. I expected this, but I keep telling him my preferences anyhow

I know it must be the same with you.

[0007]

5. How in the hell did a normal thinking Minnesotan ever get conned

into voting for this asswipe?

John Gotti had more class and charisma than Norman Coleman.

[dflprincess]

20. Bushco killed Wellstone

that's how it happened.

[0007]

22. That was a big lost to the party for sure.

No one ran against Coleman?

[dflprincess]

27. Remember, Wellstone died only 11 days before the election

On the Wednesday after his death, the DFL endorsed Walter Mondale to replace him in the race. This was also when the right wing was spinning the Memorial Service as the most terrible thing that had ever happened in all of recorded history.

As the other poster said, Mondale was up 6 points and lost by a very small margin, something was very fishy about that election. What I remember best was precincts running out of ballots and people having to wait for more to be brought to them. There were also some dirty tricks being pulled with call being made to people telling them it was not too late to vote absentee which was true, but what they were told was that they should cross out Wellstone's name and write Mondale's in place of it. This would have invalidated the ballot, technically, Mondale's name would have to have been written in the area for write-in votes. I know 3 people who received those calls. The attorney general (a DFLer) did issue a public statement that all ballots where the voter's intention was clear had to be counted. But who knows if they were?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. Not only that--the Secretary of State ruled that all absentee ballots

for Coleman would be counted as they were but that all Wellstone supporters who had voted absentee before the crash would have to revote by the end of Election Day.

In order to do so, they would have to send a letter authorizing someone to go to their county courthouse to pick up a new absentee ballot and get it to the absentee so that the absentee could return it to said county courthouse on time.

My mother and stepfather were visiting me in Oregon (having voted absentee before leaving), and they didn't find out about this ruling until it was too late to do anything about it.

The part about the absentee ballots was infuriating. ALL absentee ballots should have been invalidated in that case OR the Secretary of State could have ruled that the absentee ballots merely had to be postmarked by Election Day.

[PVK]

26. You got that right. They killed Wellstone and rigged the election.

Mondale was ahead by 6 points in the days leading up to the election. Everyone here in the DFL was coming out to vote for him in Paul's name.

It was FIXED. No doubt.

[JuniperLea]

6. Intelligence failures my ass

Bush took the faulty made up intelligence and fooled that list of Congress members and foreign countries with it, and he poo-pooed the REAL intelligence and mowed down anyone who got in his way.


I'm so sick of their bullshit.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. I save this little tidbit just for occasions like this

(T)he Senate Intelligence Committee completed an investigation on the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. In a bipartisan report issued on July 7, 2004, the Committee concluded that the intelligence assessment of Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction capabilities was not the result of political pressure.

Can you say "whitewash"?

If not, please click here.

[PVK]

15. Link not working. n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

16. Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits

From The Washington Post
Dated Thursday June 5, 2003

Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure From Cheney Visits
By Walter Pincus and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers

Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.

With Cheney taking the lead in the administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction, the visits by the vice president and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior agency official said yesterday.

[PVK]

17. That one doesn't work either. THIS one does though.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15019-2003Jun4?language=printer

[Jack Rabbit]

18. Thanks

:thumbsup:

[Mass]

8. delete - Not worth it.

[katinmn]

10. whatever

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

25. I could probably reproduce that post even though I've never seen it.

[DainBramaged]

12. Ask him how his teeth feel, and was a tooth job worth it.

[AtomicKitten]

13. ah, there's the rub.

The intelligence Congress was provided has been unequivocally proved to be cherry-picked.

Now if the Intelligence Committee would finish their goddamn job, the other part of the investigation, i.e., how the intelligence was misused, Norm's "talking points" would be rendered moot.

[katinmn]

14. But the investigation is concluded. Just like the spying case is

concluded, for all practical purposes. And the UAE port deal will be "concluded" as well.

[CarlSheeler4U]

19. In the military there's a term called oodle loop....

the concept is that it distorts real from feigned information to the degree the enemy is expending resources going off in the wrong direction and never knowing it.

Don't buy off on the deception. The paper trail was there.

What is absence was not addressing the reason we originally invaded. Al Qaeda link to 9/11 or rather the absence. There was many dismissals of UN and then US investigations.

Cutting to the chase. No WMDs found. Saddam gone. Why still there? The infrastructure was destroyed during Desert Storm and sanctions, so the "to build a stable democracy" is crap.

There are so many other areas of address like ignoring August 6 PDB on Osama and commercial air... Valerie Plame...... well you know the rap.

Go get 'em kiddo.

Carl "Be Patriotic Impeach Bush" Sheeler
Sheeler for US Senate
www.carlsheeler.com

Democrats, not aristocrats.

[Generic Brad]

23. Go Galloway On Him

Norm plays the tough guy when he can't be challenged face to face. His defense of this administration is indefensible and can easily be exposed in a public forum by anyone with half a brain and a sense of justice. Even Brownie did a heck of a job standing up to him.

[katinmn]

29. When Galloway was touring the US last year I wrote his peeps

and begged them to make a pass through Minneapolis.

They said maybe next time.

[Mister Ed]

24. Their claim, in sum: "Bush didn't lie, he just really, really screwed up".

Why would they work this hard to convince people that Bush had made the most monumental mistake of any president in U.S. history unless the truth was even worse?

[Felix Mala]

31. Any intel officer providing contrary evidence got a one-way ticket to

Palukaville.

[SeaBob]

33. Senator Coleman

Katinmn,
Write a reply to Senator coleman's response to your original letter and ask him what it would take for him to support impeachment.

[Minnesota Libra]

34. He's my Senator too and in every email I remind him......

....he was elected to do the people's work, not his own.:bounce: He has yet to ever address that point.:puke:

[mariecurie]

35. I wonder

How would he have responded if the impeachment was over the illegal wiretapping?

[Cascadian]

36. I miss Paul Wellstone!

God! King Rat Coleman's statement alone just took me back to when I first got news that Paul Wellstone was killed while listening to NPR's Talk of the Nation's Science Friday. Ira Plaitow broke the news and I felt like my stomach just got sucker punched. Don't ask me why it brought back those memories but it did. Gawd! In 2008 I hope Minnesotans will get this rat bastard out of office!

Coleman is a sleazeball!



John