From NewsMax:
Failed presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that he intends to confront Congress with a document touted by critics of President Bush as evidence that he committed impeachable crimes by falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue," Kerry said, referring to the Downing Street Memo in an interview with Massachusetts' Standard Times newspaper.
"I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home," the top Democrat added.
Unsuccessful in trying to unseat George W. Bush in the election, John Kerry now hopes to unseat Mr. Bush by mounting a “stunning” effort to impeach the President. In order to justify this attack, the self-consumed Senator from Massachusetts ignores facts that would stop most people in their tracks. Legions of people in high places believed as George Bush did, that Iraq had WMD, including John Kerry himself, along with prominent Democrats Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, Bob Graham, Harold Ford, Tom Lantos, former Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Robert Byrd, unsuccessful Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, John Rockefeller, and Henry Waxman, as well as Ex-UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter. All of them said so in at least one public statement each, and some of them in multiple public statements. Furthermore, the United Nations, and the leaders of many European countries including Monsieur Jacques Chirac, also thought Iraq had WMD. But why let those facts get in the way of a good lynching? What’s a little hypocrisy among enemies?
Sen. Kerry isn’t alone in this crusade to add to the Democrats’ efforts to tear the country apart over Iraq, however. He has the assistance of no less an authority on Iraq than Ralph Nader, who wrote in an op-ed piece in the Boston Globe, "It is time for Congress to investigate the illegal Iraq war as we move toward the third year of the endless quagmire that many security experts believe jeopardizes US safety by recruiting and training more terrorists. A Resolution of Impeachment would be a first step."
What exactly Mr. Kerry hopes to achieve from this grandstanding is a little unclear. It is almost beyond the realm of fantasy that this will get much traction, except from the nutty fringe of the Left in the U.S. and their fellow travelers in Europe. It is difficult to imagine many Americans falling for this foolishness. Perhaps he thinks that Mr. Bush will drop everything else to focus on defending himself from this charge. I wouldn’t bet on it, Senator.
Both Sen. Kerry and Mr. Nader latched onto the Downing Street Memo, which was first reported on May 1 by the London Times, and was drafted by a foreign policy aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ostensibly, the memo is based on minutes of a meeting in July 2002 where Blair allegedly admitted that the Bush administration "fixed" Iraq intelligence to manufacture a rationale for war. Do you suppose Mr. Bush would have confided such a thing to Mr. Blair, even if it were true? Even so, the memo contains no quotes from either Bush or Blair, and presents little or no evidence implicating Bush in a WMD cover-up.
Call me crazy, but I have to believe that the Democrats are once again shooting themselves in the foot with this charade. Howard Dean continues to embarrass the Party with his ill-advised off-the-cuff insults of Republicans and the President. And now John Kerry, of all people, wants to be the chairman of the “let’s hang Bush” committee.
Methinks this entire fiasco has the distinct odor of sour grapes.
9 comments:
I have no love for John Kerry, but I think it's worth investigating. Yes, the majority of the people you mention believed Iraq had WMD, b/c that's what the intelligence said. The whole issue surrounding the memo is that the admin fixed/doctored/"sexed up" that intelligence, so one can't blame all those people from believing the WMD was there.
Let's assume Mr. Shott and I run with the same group of friends. I tell them all a lie. Later, it's found to be a lie, but I say, don't blame me, Mr. Shott thought it was true also.
Now I'm not saying the admin lied, but I believe there are enough flags raised here that an investigation into how the intelligence was used is warranted- especially b/c when the president appointed a panel to look at the intelligence failures, he explicitly limited their scope so that they couldn't look at how he used the intelligence.
“Yes, the majority of the people you mention believed Iraq had WMD.” Not just “the majority” believed there were WMD in Iraq, but all of them did. I read their public statements prior to making the post. Now, I recognize that is a small point in your overall statement, but it is a significant point.
I might be inclined to agree with you, Bulldog, if the only source of intelligence was the White House. But that’s not the case. If you re-read my list, it contains the names of both Scott Ritter and Jacques Chirac, and neither is subject to being manipulated by the White House or the CIA. It also contained the United Nations, which, you will remember, issued no less than 14 resolutions directed at Saddam Hussein, some of which addressed his behavior and apparent efforts re: WMD.
Further, President Clinton made public statements when he was in office, as did members of his cabinet, his staff, and his wife when she became a senator, and unless his administration is also going to be a subject of this investigation, I restate my assertion that it is politically motivated.
We have seen before where the Democrats have used the following reasoning for starting investigations: “Even though there is no evidence, the seriousness of the charges warrants an investigation.” In this case it is even worse, because there is evidence, and the evidence is contrary to the assertion Sen. Kerry and Mr. Nader made.
The flag that warrants the most attention, in my opinion, is the one the Democrats wave against the war in Iraq. They oppose the war on the grounds that no WMD were found, and they conveniently gloss over the prevailing suspicions about WMD in Iraq at the time the war began. I feel certain they would find some other reason to oppose the war if WMD had been found, so long as a Republican administration initiated the action. This is a case of political mischief making, and nothing more.
Kerry is a freakin' trial attorney. Chasing ambulances is what he does.
You're right!
What was I thinking?
*SCREAMS*
YAY!!!!
DAMN!!!!
John Kerry himself, along with prominent Democrats Ted Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara A. Milulski, Tom Daschle, Bob Graham, Harold Ford, Tom Lantos, former Clinton Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Robert Byrd, unsuccessful Democratic Presidential hopeful Wesley Clark, former President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, John Rockefeller, and Henry Waxman, as well as Ex-UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter makes an impressive list, until you realise that they like everyone else were led to believe this to be true on information supplied by the CIA, The White House and The Pentagon, and I feel President Bush is a little closer to the source of this information than those on your list, don't you think?
I have a feeling they would one and all be accused of treason had they suggested the nation's government was somehow misleading with their information.
Assuming that you are correct that the CIA either misled, or was wrong in its assessment, I hardly think the U.N., Jacques Chirac, and U.N. Weapons Inspecter Scott Ritter depended upon the CIA for their information.
If the U.N. uses U.S. intelligence instead of its own sources, that merely supports my contention that it is a useless, feckless, and incompetent organization that provides little benefit to the world.
You just need to finally admit that the virtually the entire world thought Hussein had WMD, and the information did not all come from the CIA. If you just open up to the facts, you'll see that there was ample evidence to support the widely-held opinion that he had them. I'm still not convinced that he didn't, although if the suspicions that I share with others on that are correct, we may never know or be able to prove it.
So many are so ready to condemn George Bush, including many in America and in our media, that they will overlook much contrary evidence in order to make their case. I cite the shameless CBS News and Newsweek fiascos as examples of American news media who are willing to forego their journalistic integrity in order to take a shot at Mr. Bush.
Makes you wonder how so many millions of people who are "eager to condemn Mr Bush" can be wrong all at once. If it was just a handful of fanatics I could understand it. Those of whom you speak were hardly a handful of fanatics.
They are not only wrong, they are outnumbered.
But as wrong as they all were, not all are fanatics.
However, people like John Kerry who choose to forget inconvenient facts in order to justify this stupid idea ARE fanatics. Thank God he lost.
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