If I Only Had the Noive

It's no wonder I considered going independent. I'm getting really, really tired of reading headlines like this:

As liberal Democrat calls for special prosecutor on Iraq, Democrats duck

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the feisty septuagenarian congressman who serves as the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee will issue yet another missive to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later this week calling for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate possible criminal misconduct in regard to the Bush Administration's march to war in Iraq.

Just five other Democrats have signed Conyers' letter: Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) Mike Honda (D-CA) and Jim McDermott (D-WA), Susan Davis (D-CA,) and Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) along with Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Conyers' move comes on the heels of yet another British memorandum showing that President Bush had conspired with Prime Minister Tony Blair to set a fixed date for war before even bringing Iraq to the United Nations. The memo also asserts that Bush had proposed a plan to paint a U.S. spyplane with UN markings and use it to attempt to lure Saddam Hussein into war.

What's striking isn't that Conyers is calling on Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor. He's done it before, and he'd likely do it again. But his decision to take public action to seek a Justice Department investigation of pre-war policy and manipulation of the press has met resounding silence among his Democratic Party.

Cowards, the lot of them. As mentioned in the article, the Dems are more than happy to open their yappers and bash Bush, particularly when a camera is aimed their way, but when it comes to actually holding Bush, Inc. accountable, they bound away like startled deer.

Democratic senators have called for a special prosecutor to investigate both the fallen conservative lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the National Security Administration's domestic surveillance program. But they have yet to seek a criminal inquiry into how the United States got into a war that has cost taxpayers $300 billion dollars and is burning the nation's reserves at the rate of $100,000 a minute.

What's more important here? Abramoff, or this money and life-sucking vampire of a war? Why the uninhibited glee about releasing the hounds on the Abramoff scandal, and complete silence on the war?

Democrats won't sign onto Conyers letter - and have ignored his moves on Iraq in the past. Aides tell RAW STORY that Abramoff and the NSA wiretaps are better issues because they feel they have more political resonance, and because their caucus is divided on the handling of Iraq policy. None would be identified by name, and most declined to be quoted - even anonymously.

"The [push] to go after Abramoff is because a lot of Republicans are tied into it," one aide remarked. "The NSA thing splits the Republican base."

Ah, so in other words, you're taking the easy way out. As usual. You're thinking more about political tactics and taking as many Republicans out as possible, and not giving the slightest thought to your constituents. Way to go, Democrats. Thanks for standing up for us.

One aide noted that the issues surrounding the lead-up to the Iraq war are a hard issue for Democrats because many believed - and said - they thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. President Clinton also took a hard line, saying in 1998, "We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."

So did House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process," Pelosi said in 1998.

"Was Clinton lying to the people, was he falsifying that stuff?" one aide asked. "I honestly think [Bush] thought that there were weapons over there. Everybody thought there were weapons over there."

Everybody did not think there were weapons over there. In case you didn't notice, there were these protest thingies that were going on all over the globe before the leadup to the war, jam-packed with people that didn't "think there were weapons over there." We couldn't get other countries to sign on to this sham of a war, because they didn't believe there were were WMDs. And now that we've stomped Iraq into a pile of rubble and nothing has turned up, and more and more evidence shows that Bush knew nothing was there, it deserves a goddamn investigation, don't you think?

Dems, start supporting your fellow Democrats. Playing "gotcha" on money scandals and simply trying to pick off as many Republicans as possible is not going to win you any points. You're disgusting Democratic voters, and driving away possible supporters.

Do you want the Democrats to be on top again? Then investigate the follow-up to war, investigate the Downing Street Memos, get people in a courtroom and put them under oath, and get to the bottom of this. And stop treating Conyers like a crackpot and a pariah.

Yes, the Abramoff scandal is important. The wiretapping scandal is very important. But people are getting slaughtered in Iraq every day because of cowboy vigilantism and lies. Get your priorities straight.

Democratic aides acknowledge, however, that Conyers has been instrumental in orchestrating a fury over the lead-up to war in Iraq.

"You've got to remember that Conyers and a few others early on were speaking about the war in Iraq and how wrong it was and that number has grown tremendously," one aide said. "Sometimes it takes someone like him to get the fire up and ignited."

And sometimes it takes a bunch of cowardly Democrats to piss all over it and put it out.

(Full text of Conyer's letter to Gonzales is at the link.)

(Nobody sees the Cross-Post! Not nobody, not nohow!)