Sunday, January 28, 2007

Trading Lies

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall January 27, 2007 01:41 PM:

"I was just reading over a few of the articles about the Libby trial and Vice President Cheney's central role in orchestrating the attack on Joe Wilson in order to cover-up Cheney's complicity in and essential authorship of one of the central lies at the core of the Bush administration's case for war. The truth, though, is that we are not really examining the cover-up in this case so much as we are still living within it. Most of the key facts of this episode either remain entirely concealed or buried under a mass of government produced misinformation. The Senate intelligence committee report, authored by Republicans, but shamelessly and with great cowardice okayed by senate Democrats? I've been asked many times why the Democrats signed off on this fraudulent document. I think there are two basic reasons -- or two categories of reasons.

First, as hard as it is to say, shallow and poor staff work on the Democratic side, abetted, caused and hopelessly bound up with senators unwilling to get their noses dirty or their ribs bruised. Second, there was a more specific and complex error. In so many words, the Democrats agreed to let the Republican authors of the report lie and deceive as much as they wanted on the Niger/Uranium and Wilson/Plame fronts in exchange for allowing a semi-revealing look at other instances"
In other words, the Democrats forgot their role as the minority party. For far too long, they consistently turned the other cheek. We have some new folks in Congress, but for the most part they are the same people. How can we expect them make stands, set an agenda and really create a vision that people in this country can claim as their own?

For those few in Congress that took the high road, and tried to point out the fallacies and misdeeds of the administration, thank you. At least you tried.

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