Dems co-signed wateboarding
…that’s why they are less than aggressive about holding Bush accountable. What are your questions?
What did Congressional Democrats know, and when did they know it?
Is it possible that many Democratic leaders have been informed by the Bush administration over the years about its doubtfully legal activities?
If so, are they therefore complicit in the Bush administration’s lawlessness?
It’s just been disclosed that Representative Jane Harmon and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were briefed by the Bush administration on the use of waterboarding. Harmon objected but Pelosi did not — and when she became speaker of the house, she rejected Harmon for chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
The Administration has frequently responded to charges of Executive usurpation by saying the Congressional leaders were fully briefed on such questionable practices as NSA surveillance, extraordinary rendition, and enhanced interrogation techniques.
And evidence is mounting that they were. According to the Washington Post, since 2002 leading Democrats lawmakers received “about 30 private CIA briefings, some…
Janet Weil:
Please check out link posted in website for a report on a protest of Pelosi’s complicity in torture, rendition and secret (but not to her!) CIA torture sites. No wonder “impeachment is off the table!”
14 December 2007, 1:15 amStan:
Anyone heard how Cindy’s campaign against her is going?
14 December 2007, 7:23 amrootlesscosmo:
As best I can tell, it’s not going at all. The “Cindy Sheehan for Congress” web site includes a blog where the most recent posting is from late October; a campaign HQ opening was announced for December 8th but seems to have been ignored by local media. My impression is that there really isn’t a campaign organization or a fund-raising effort yet, though it’s a long way to the California primary.
I keep comparing the present situation with 1966, when serious (though unsuccessful) primary challenges to Democratic Congressional incumbents signaled the emergence of antiwar sentiment on the electoral scene. An important difference is that the White House was then occupied by LBJ, a Democrat with strong support from labor and African-American organizations (even SDS had given him qualified endorsement–”Part of the Way with LBJ”–in 1964.) So antiwar people could have no illusions that the Democrats, as a party, would act against the war; electoral efforts could only take the form of primary challenges or third party initiatives (California Peace and Freedom party emerged in the wake of the failure of the 1966 antiwar primary campaigns.) By contrast, it seems to me, most antiwar voters now still cling to the belief that the Democratic Presidential candidates and Congressional leadership represent the only practical option, and Sheehan will have an uphill battle overcoming that view.
14 December 2007, 10:23 amrootlesscosmo:
I should add that I have an almost unblemished record, over more than 40 years, of wrongheaded electoral predictions. I got my first passport in 1964 because I was convinced Goldwater was going to win in November; in the event, LBJ won overwhelmingly. And around 1980 I assured an out-of-town guest that Dianne Feinstein’s political career had reached its limit as Mayor of San Francisco, since there was no way a Jewish woman from Northern California could get elected to the US Senate; California now has two Northern California Jewish women Senators.
14 December 2007, 11:11 amrootlesscosmo:
Update: turns out the California primary is February 5, 2008–less than two months away. I don’t think that’s enough time to put together a serious campaign, even a serious “symbolic” campaign. But see above for my track record as an electoral prophet.
14 December 2007, 11:22 pmJames M:
Re: The Sheehan campaign — I was just on the horn with a VFP fundraiser who says he’s on his way out to provide some assistance. From his characterization of things, it would seem the campaign’s not dead by any means, but it does need a bit of a jumpstart.
@Rootless: The February primary is a presidential primary. As best I can tell, there is no primary process for congressional candidates, and in any case, I think Cindy’s running independent. So we still have till November …
19 December 2007, 8:22 pmrootlesscosmo:
James M: Correct about the primary date–my mistake. The general statewide primary is on June 3rd. But I’m pretty sure it will include Congressional primaries; two years ago, for example, a guy named Ro Khanga put up an impressive challenge to longtime incumbent Tom Lantos in the district where I live. I had thought Sheehan intended to offer a similar challenge to Pelosi in her district, but I could be mistaken.
20 December 2007, 12:00 amaudrey:
Cindy was here in Detroit last month and was talking about the campaign and challenging Pelosi, and describing her platform - but not as a democrat, so James is right on that point. Unless she changes her game plan, they won’t be going head to head against each other in a primary battle. But rootless is also right regarding the general process - we do have primaries for congressional candidates in addition to presidential ones. (We have a local one that’s fairly heated between two democrats each hoping to unseat an incumbent republican.)
Here’s a short writeup from Cindy’s Detroit visit. John Conyers gave her a glowing into. She mentioned that the last time she’d seen him she was being arrested in his office. The last time I saw Conyers before that was when he was warming introducing Ann Wright, who had also just been arrested in his office a few weeks earlier.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/METRO01/711190408
20 December 2007, 5:06 pmJames M:
I stand corrected — thanks, Rootless and Audrey.
21 December 2007, 12:06 amrootlesscosmo:
I just visited the Cindy Sheehan for Congress site at
http://www.cindyforcongress.org/
and according to her Open Letter to Nancy Pelosi, she does plan to run without any party affiliation. I think under California law this will require collecting signatures to qualify for a line on the ballot; the site is still under construction so these details aren’t spelled out.
21 December 2007, 11:50 am