Sen. Roberts has said that his committee looked into the use of...

[harlinnchi]

...intelligence by this administration. He is and his committee is charged with just that task, monitoring the executive branch, to ensure that the lives of our children are not thrown away in mindless political or geopolitical games. He pooh-poohed any mention of a more thorough 'Phase II' investigation, saying it had already occurred and that its findings are almost ready for publication. Yet this man, privy to the most sensitive intelligence, does not and did not say that Bush enabled the release of administration-friendly information and withheld that which strengthened the claims of their adversaries. He must have known it to be true but he appears to have actively concealed the fact from America.

It is axiomatic here that the entire GOP is complicit in facilitating the mess in which we find ourselves. All of them. Let us not be distracted by folk who mention the 'tone' of any political discussion, not when so many have died and have given so much blood. I don't want to hear how the president wants a 'dignified' conversation about Iraq, how he doesn't want to hear about 'misleading America into war'.

All I know is that in every race all over the country the GOP must be held accountable for creating this poisonous atmosphere. Sen. Roberts is clearly responsible because when he had the chance, he failed to clear the poison away. He should be an emblem of what could have been known but wasn't.

[rodeodance]

1. how do you hold a man like Roberts accountable?--

[harlinnchi]

3. I can't touch him in any election beyond contributing a buck or two.

An I almost mean that literally! But I do think a reasonable case can be made for Sen. Roberts to play one of what appears to be a growing list of poster boys for the various failures of this administration and this crop of GOP leadership.

[saltpoint]

4. Good point, and I think the exact right starting point with Roberts.

He's a witless mediocrity, in place on the Intelligence Committee because he has none, and therefor is no challenge to a very corrupt White House.

[bullimiami]

2. regardless of his past now bush has made roberts a liar and crook

he is an accomplice. sharing ALL guilt.

[monarch]

5. If he is not running for reelection,

I think that we should try to impeach him. What the heck, today has been so much fun, lets go after every single Republican senator after we get Bush and Cheney, and, maybe, even if we don't get them.

[stillcool]

6. Huge Public hearings....

broadcast world-wide for all politicians, and individuals suspected of aiding and abetting the administration. Sounds McCarthyesque, but tried individually they always hide behind national security, or limit the scope of the investigation to exclude the more damaging crimes. It seems the only purpose for congressional hearings is to find out what they can sell.

[monarch]

7. Good point

Even if we can't force him to take a position because he's not in the election cycle. he'll have to weigh the hypocrisy factor in deciding whether to try to block hearings.

Some great stuff on DU today alot of really wonderful ideas and energy.

[harlinchi]

8. The NY Times appears to agree.

In their article (4-7-06, 'Playing Hardball With Secrets, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/07/opinion/07fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin), they take Sen Roberts to task for just these failures.


Playing Hardball With Secrets
Published: April 7, 2006

For more than two years, Senate Republicans have dragged out an investigation into how the Bush administration came to use bogus intelligence on Iraq to justify a war. A year ago, Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called it "a monumental waste of time" to consider whether the White House manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, the evidence has steadily mounted that President Bush and his team not only did that before the war, but kept right on doing it after the invasion. The most recent additions to this pile came yesterday, in reports by The New York Sun, The National Journal and other news organizations on documents from the case against Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney who is charged with lying about the unmasking of Valerie Wilson, a covert C.I.A. agent.

According to these papers, Mr. Libby testified that President Bush authorized him to tell reporters about classified intelligence on Iraq as part of an effort to discredit Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson, a retired diplomat who had cast doubt on the claim that Iraq tried to acquire uranium for nuclear bombs from Niger. The National Journal reported that Mr. Libby has also said that Mr. Cheney authorized him to leak classified information before the invasion to make the case for war.

...We have seen no evidence that Mr. Bush authorized the outing of Mrs. Wilson. But at the least, revealing selected bits of intelligence, including information that officials may well have known to be false, seems like a serious abuse of power. It's not even clear that Mr. Bush can legally declassify intelligence at whim.

I really believe that Sen. Roberts is an excellent example of what the GOP, all of them, are doing and have done to this country.

I don't really mean all of them. There must be some who honestly care about America. I remember a republican who was in charge of the department of Veteran's Affairs. He was canned because of his active advocacy for the veterans he represented. He was replaced by a party hack. Most members of the GOP, however, care primarily for the corporate interests of their contributors. They must be vilified with broad brushes. Their tales of failure, greed, corruption, mismanagement and enslavement to their corporate interests must be harvested as if they were crops for which we cared all spring and summer. Sen. Roberts is just low-hanging and ripe.