Tuesday, June 14, 2005

 

Excitement builds over Downing Street Memo hearing

First, if you haven't signed the petition demanding a response to questions originally posed by Rep. John Conyers and 88 other members of Congress, please do so here. Conyers expects to present the petition to the White House Thursday and already has a half million names.

Second, check the list below to see if your Representative has signed. If not, call and email your Representative to find out why not.1 (The list at DowningStreetMemo.com is in PDF format, so I've copied it here.)   Ditto for your Senators.


Congressional signers

Neil Abercrombie 1
Brian Baird 2
Tammy Baldwin 3
Xavier Becerra 4
Shelley Berkley 5
Sanford Bishop 6
Earl Blumenauer 7
Corrine Brown 8
Sherrod Brown 9
G.K.Butterfield 10
Donna M.Christensen 11
William Lacy Clay 12
Emanuel Cleaver 13
James Clyburn 14
John Conyers 15
Jim Cooper 16
Elijah Cummings 17
Danny Davis 18
Peter DeFazio 19
Diana De Gette 20
Bill Delahunt 21
Rosa DeLauro 22
Lloyd Doggett 23
Sam Farr 24
Bob Filner 25
Harold Ford,Jr.26
Barney Frank 27
Al Green 28
Raul Grijalva 29
Louis Gutierrez 30
Alcee Hastings 31
Maurice Hinchey 32
Rush Holt 33
Jay Inslee 34
Sheila Jackson Lee 35
Jessie Jackson Jr.36
Eddie Bernice Johnson 37
Stephanie Tubbs Jones 38
Marcy Kaptur 39
Patrick Kennedy 40
Dale Kildee 41
Carolyn Kilpatrick 42
Dennis Kucinich 43
Barbara Lee 44
John Lewis 45
Zoe Lofgren 46
Carolyn Maloney 47
Ed Markey 48
Carolyn McCarthy 49
Jim McDermott 50
James McGovern 51
Cynthia McKinney 52
Martin Meehan 53
Kendrick Meek 54
Gregory Meeks 55
Michael Michaud 56
George Miller 57
Gwen S.Moore 58
James Moran 59
Jerrold Nadler 60
Grace Napolitano 61
James Oberstar 62
John Olver 63
Major Owens 64
Frank Pallone 65
Donald Payne 66
Charles Rangel 67
Bobby Rush 68
Bernie Sanders 69
Linda Sanchez 70
Jan Schakowsky 71
Jose Serrano 72
Ike Skelton 73
Louise Slaughter 74
Hilda Solis 75
Pete Stark 76
Ellen Tauscher 77
Bennie Thompson 78
Edolphus Towns 79
Chris Van Hollen 80
Nydia Velazquez 81
Debbie Wasserman Schultz 82
Maxine Waters 83
Diane Watson 84
Melvin Watt 85
Robert Wexler 86
Lynn Woolsey 87
David Wu 88
Albert R.Wynn 89

By the way, the name of Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, Democratic leader in the House, is conspicuously absent. As is the name of Rep. Barbara Boxer.

Juan Cole of Informed Comment and professor of Middle Eastern studies lost his professorial reserve yesterday to write

The bloggers have forced the issue into the corporate media, and are helping create a real buzz around the Conyers hearings scheduled for Thursday.

Conyers and his staff are well aware that ordinarily hearings held by members of the minority party in Congress (which therefore are unlikely to have teeth) are routinely ignored by the corporate media. They are placing their hopes in the blogging world to cover the hearings and get the word out. They are planning to release further documents corroborating the Downing Street Memo.

This entire affair could be a harbinger of what is coming in 2007. If the Democrats can take back the Senate in 2006, all of a sudden they could schedule real investigatory hearings at the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee, into Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans, into Cheney's pressure on the CIA analysts, into the fabrication of intelligence and the political lies that dragged this country into the Iraq quagmire. Imagine what the Republicans did to Bill Clinton for merely fibbing about a desultory relationship (13 meetings) with a young woman that did not even involve intercourse. What would be the appropriate punishment for lying about Iraq's non-existent nuclear weapons program? Or launching a war of aggression in contravention of the United Nations Charter? Bush knows very well he will be a lame duck by January 2007. The real question is whether he will end up being roasted duck.

Don't hold back, Juan. Go on. Tell it like it is!

Follow-up post
PBS NewsHour claims credit for Downinggate;
may deserve some after last night
(6/17/05)
David Manning's memo to Blair (6/17/05)

Footnotes

1 If your Representative has already signed, this would be a great time to send a note of thanks. It will help convey the importance to the public of the investigations into Downing Street—and that many eyes are watching. [back]

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