20051222

Constitution in crisis?

I received an E-mail from Ohio Democratic Congressman John Conyers.

In the E-mail he announces he has released a staff report entitled, "The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution and Coverups in the Iraq War." Within the E-mail he provided a link to the report which you can (see here). The report is rather lengthy and I did not go through it all, however I did read the Executive Summary which covers the issues. The whole report is available, however, to anyone who wants to explore the issues in their minutiae.

I am only trying to help Rep Conyers publicize his report because I think he has some valid arguments, even though I do not think he would win the debate. Since I doubt he will be given "equal air time" I will do my best to help him exercise his freedom of speech (and surely Congressman should enjoy this right - grin).

He also asks American citizens to sign up as citizen cosponsors of "a resolution creating a Select Committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush Administration with regard to the Iraq war and report on possible impeachable offenses; as well as Resolutions proposing both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney should be censured by Congress based on the uncontroverted evidence of their abuse of power." I am not going to do that.

While I too think Dubyah should be condemned for his wrong headed leadership in getting us into Iraq (which was one of the issues I took into consideration when I chose to vote for Kerry), I do not think his "offenses" rise to the level of being impeachable. Most of what Rep Conyers speaks about was already known in the last Presidential election, these issues were debated, and a majority of the American people voted to give Dubyah 4 more years anyway. While the Downing Street Memo only became known after the election, it was still pretty well publicized after the fact and now Dubyah's approval ratings are again approaching 50% even with all the other issues taken into consideration.

If a poll were taken asking "Should Dubyah be impeached?" I think Rep Conyers would be greatly disappointed. Even many of those who disapprove of his leadership (me for example) are not going to be in favor of impeachment.

If Rep Conyers does not understand how this can be, then let me point to impeachment efforts against Bill Clinton. It was due to public opposition from people like me; people like me writing our Senators, that helped squash that effort. While we disapproved of what Bill Clinton had done, we did not think it rose to the level of an impeachable offense. I wrote my Republican Senator (the other was a Democrat at the time and I did not have to worry about him) and asked him to knock it off.

Personally I look at what Rep Conyers is up to as stirring up shit. However I support his right to stir up shit if he wants to, so I will aid him in "trying to get the word out".

"Freedom of Speech" is not yet dead in America.

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