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February 02, 2007

"Beyond Oral Sex"

I've been busy the last week finishing a long article with David Swanson on the Iraq investigations that congressional Democrats should do—but probably won't without pressure. It's now up at TomDispatch:

Beyond Oral Sex
The Bush Investigations

The last time Congress was controlled by the party in opposition to the White House, we all learned more than we cared to know about the uses of cigars. This time the need for investigations is much more serious. The Democrats are talking fast and furious about doing them, but they're not talking about doing the right ones -- and a month into their tenure, they've barely discovered where the bathrooms are.

As humorist Bob Harris enjoys saying about the Bush administration, "It's like a new Watergate every day with these people." Congress could probably spend three decades profitably examining the last six years of the Bush administration. Unfortunately, they'll have to do severe triage to select the areas of malfeasance where investigations will most benefit the country.

The rest.

Posted at February 2, 2007 10:48 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Excellent article. I wanted to forward it to the congress members mentioned in the article who are on the specific committees that could follow up on the questions, but apparently I have to live in their districts or states to be able e-mail them via the congressional e-mail form system.

Anyone know of direct e-mail addresses for the congress?

Posted by: riffrider at February 2, 2007 11:59 AM

riffrider,

Thanks for trying this. Where do you live? The best thing to do would be to find out what committees your senators and representative are on. At least one of them is probably on intelligence, armed services, appropriations, or government reform. They can have influence (particularly if they're Democrats) even if they're not the chair.

Then, join a United for Peace & Justice affiliate in your area. They may be getting involved in this, and your voice would be magnified if part of a group.

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at February 2, 2007 12:09 PM

I've been reading you for quite a while, and I didn't know you were a media consultant for the Kucinich campaign. I don't think I'd want you to post the disclaimer on every post like Jon Henke at Q&O did when he went to work for George Allen, but I hope you put it up somewhere.

Those questions about the permanent bases and the money diverted to buildup in Kuwait are good questions.

Posted by: Noumenon at February 2, 2007 12:20 PM

Does any sensible person believe Bush or Blair would have dared to attack Saddam if they truly belived he had the purported WMDs? They knew the inspectors had essentially disarmed Iraq and by knowing this an U.S. invasion was guarenteed with the joyful prospects that it would be "a slam dunk cakewalk." It is said "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" and the plans of these rodents that started this war have gone much further than simply being "awry." steve USN WW2

Posted by: Steve at February 2, 2007 03:21 PM

There are, indeed, so many things to investigate -- suppression of global climate evidence, torture, paying pundits to plant your education propaganda, war profiteering, Katrina, blowing the cover of CIA agents, an open door policy for everyone from Jack Abramoff to fake journalist/male escorts. If you really pursued them all, there's a danger that the public would get bored with it or lost in all the details, and the right wing machine would claim it was all just politically motivated (without a hint of irony).

It's tempting to think that this is part of Karl Rove's plan -- be so over-the-top with crimes that you overwhelm the investigators. But I just think they are so fundamentally corrupt they don't know how else to operate. So where do you begin, and would Congress ever get anything else done if they investigated everything worth investigating?

Posted by: Whistler Blue at February 2, 2007 04:56 PM