Torture's Opponent

The best person on TV right now telling the truth about torture is, of all people, Jesse Ventura, former professional wrestler, former governor of Minnesota. Watch him take on torture and the loathesome Sean Hannity:

Women Excluded From Stimulus Negotiations

Incredibly, the joint House/Senate conference committee ironing out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus contains no women! You can complain about this by sending an email to Nancy Pelosi here and one to Harry Reid here. Harry Reid's contact form only takes email from Nevada residents, so say you live on S. Carson St. in Carson City, zip code 89702. He is the Senate Majority Leader, he should take emails from everyone. Spineless weenie that he is. Grrrrr.

The Moderate Voice: No Female Senators or Representatives from Congress are on Stimulus Bill Conference Committee

You have got to be kidding me:

Senate Democratic leadership has announced who will be serving on the conference committee to iron out differences in the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill.

* Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
* Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
* Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii
* Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa
* Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

Both Finance and Appropriations were heavily involved in the creation of the Senate version, with each committee holding markups on their portions.

And for the House:

* Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey, D-Wis.
* Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.
* Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.
* Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.
* Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Dave Camp, R-Mich.

This is what it means to not have a critical mass, to have less than 25% of your constituency represented. Only 17% of all congressional members are female. And so, with five from the Senate (5% of the Senate) and 5 from the House (just over 1%), what chance do women get to be selected for these critical reconciliation meetings?

Republicans Bail on Bailout Bill

Took credit for the bill before it passed; spent rest of day backpedaling furiously.

The massive Wall Street bailout bill failed, as only 1/3 of House Republicans voted for the bill. Democrats are shocked! shocked! that the Republicans (Lucy) pulled the football away again.

I'm not, but I expect nothing more than the worst from Congressional Republicans.

The stock market promptly fell 777 points, a one-day record. For want of a $700 billion dollar bill, Wall Street investors lost $1.1 trillion dollars. And that's just today. Hold on the reins, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

At least the media seems to realize that it is the Republicans who blew up the bailout bill, and the economy:

Chris Matthews, MSNBC:


Ed Henry, CNN:


John Boehner (Boner) claimed that Republicans couldn't vote for the bailout bill in the end because Nancy Pelosi gave an exceptionally partisan speech just before the vote. Barney Frank was incredulous at this explanation:


John McCain wins the McHypocrite award for this ridiculous statement:

"Now is not the time to fix the blame."
"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanness into the process."

Actually, he blamed first, then said no blame.

No blame. Blame. His head is spinning around like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.

Anything to get you to ignore McCain's first statement of the day. From Politico:

McCain takes credit for bill before it loses

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.

He'd say or do anything to win.

Why'd I Waste All That Time in Law School?

Why did I bother studying the Fourth Amendment anyway? It's just about gone. The House just voted 293-129 for a new FISA bill eliminating my Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure from the Constitution. I mean, you can hem and haw around it, but when the President has unlimited power to let major telecoms spy on you & shovel the info to the government, and then Congress ratifies the spying, lets everyone involved off the hook, and gives the President even more power to spy, what else can you call it? Farewell, Fourth Amendment, I knew you well.

Hello, Verizon, enjoy listening in on all my telephone calls and reading my emails, and transmitting them to the government. Who needs the Stasi? We've got the telecoms, who will help Big Brother invade every aspect of our lives.

Maybe I need to buy a printing press, because the Interwebs ain't free any more.

Why did the Democrats cave yet again? (I am so goddamn sick of seeing Democrat and cave in the same sentence. I expect to see it next week when the Senate caves to Preznit Chimpy McSmirk on this very bill.) I saw an interesting theory somewhere on the blogs last night, that this is to protect the Democrats who got clued in to the illegal wiretapping program by the President (Pelosi, Reid, Steny Hoyer), who would have been liable if the telecoms were allowed to stand trial for their crimes. So they're really just protecting their multimillionaire asses. God forbid a member of Congress actually has to follow the law.

I mean, it's just the fucking Constitution, right, "It's just a goddamned piece of paper" as President Fuckwit once said.

So they all took an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution. So what? They don't want to have to pay for violating their oaths. It's all about their precious Benjamins.

At least my Congressman, the estimable James P. McGovern, voted no.

One would hope that the law school professor who taught Constitutional law who happens to be running for President would stand up and oppose this in the Senate; I'm not holding my breath. One would think that my junior Senator would pull his head out of his ass long enough to do what Senator Kennedy would do if he wasn't in the middle of major cancer treatments, filibuster this abomination. But again, I'm not holding my breath waiting for Kerry to fight. Remember how he was going to fight for every vote in 2004? Right.

I will end with a comment from the firedoglake post announcing the vote:

Revenge is a dish best served cold. Hoyer and Pelosi will get their just desserts in due time. They spit on the graves of those who fought and died for the Constitution including the 4th Amendment. They would sell their country out and the honor and memory of those lying in hallowed and unhallowed ground around the world for a bag of silver.

That's about right. Selling the Constitution for 30 pieces of silver. Shame.

Thank god for sports so I can escape the fury I feel. Euro 2008, here I come.

Four Democrats Briefed About Torture in 2002; Silent Ever Since

Nancy Pelosi
Jay Rockefeller
Jane Harman
Bob Graham

were informed by the CIA in 2002 that the US planned to torture prisoners, and said nothing. Nothing. They did not speak out against torture.

Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the Socialists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left
to speak up for me.

Waterboarding is torture. It has been considered torture for centuries, since it was used in the Spanish Inquisition. It is also a technique favored by the Gestapo, the Khmer Rouge, and now by the United States of America. It is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaties which are supposed to set the standards for international humanitarian behavior.

The fact that these four supposed Democrats stayed silent about this method of torture for five years is a failure of the highest order. They may have written letters that were stamped "Top Secret" and stored in a dusty file cabinet. But they have stayed silent ever since, protecting the Bush administration as it descended into the lowest depths humans can go.

No wonder impeachment is off the table. The Democrats have been aiding and abetting the very war crimes that would form the basis of the impeachment trial.

WaPo: Hill Briefed on Waterboarding in 2002
In Meetings, Spy Panels' Chiefs Did Not Protest, Officials Say

In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.

Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.

"The briefer was specifically asked if the methods were tough enough," said a U.S. official who witnessed the exchange.

[]

With one known exception, no formal objections were raised by the lawmakers briefed about the harsh methods during the two years in which waterboarding was employed, from 2002 to 2003, said Democrats and Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. The lawmakers who held oversight roles during the period included Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), as well as Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan).

Lambert at Corrente says: Barney Frank for Speaker. He wouldn't have kept his mouth shut about torture.

Corrente: We are Democrats. They are enablers.

Excerpts, Tillman Hearing

These were posted on Nancy Pelosi's blog, The Gavel. Fratricide used for political purposes by the Bush Administration. The grief of a family tread upon for political purposes. Sickening. (On Pelosi's blog, you can also see Jessica Lynch's opening statement.)

Congressman Waxman's (D-CA) opening statement:


Kevin Tillman opening statement:


Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) questions:

The Corporate Media Slimes Nancy Pelosi

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) shakes hands with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem at her arrival to Damascus airport April 3, 2007. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri
There was nothing wrong or unprecedented about Nancy Pelosi's bipartisan delegation's visit to Syria. The corporate media was happy to carry the Bush Administrations's slurs about it, though. Paul Krugman deconstructs the media dance. One step, Bushco; two step, Fox; three step, CNN; four step, Washington Post. Do-si-so with your partner, round and round.

Paul Krugman, NYTimes: Sweet Little Lies (TimesSelect wall; also here and here).

Combat Disinformation

MediaMattersforAmerica: Tell CNN to get the facts right on Pelosi trip

For much of the past week, CNN and its White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux have offered a steady stream of inaccurate and incomplete coverage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) trip to the Middle East and her April 3 meeting with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Please join Media Matters for America in demanding that CNN and Malveaux stop misinforming viewers about Pelosi's trip and present all the facts. CNN's contact information can be found in our "Take Action!" sidebar on the right.

Since April 2, Malveaux has wrongly and repeatedly claimed that Pelosi had no "standing" and was not acting in an "official capacity," has attacked the trip as "political theater" and a "political stunt," and has parroted the Bush administration's attacks on Pelosi for going to Syria while ignoring the fact that a Republican-led delegation met with Assad on April 1. Most recently, Malveaux asked whether Pelosi's trip was a "big wet kiss to President Al-Assad."

Other CNN personalities have joined in as well. Lou Dobbs devoted an entire segment to "Pelosi's bad trip," while the April 3 edition of Anderson Cooper 360 featured a segment on Pelosi's trip titled "Talking to Terrorists."

After several days of inaccurate, one-sided coverage, it's time to tell CNN enough is enough. It's time to take action.

Use the contact information in our "Take Action!" sidebar to contact CNN, Malveaux, and Dobbs -- and be sure to tell your friends.

Here's my email to CNN:

I am writing about Suzanne Malveaux's attacks on Nancy Pelosi's trip to Syria. Speakers of the House have traveled and held meetings with foreign countries before (Gingrich, China 1997); Republicans have met with foreign leaders throughout our history (Hastert, Columbia, 1997). Incredibly, five Republican members of Congress have met with Syrian leaders this week (Robert Aderholt (R-Al), Frank Wolf (R-Va), David Hobson (R-Oh), Joseph Pitts (R-Pa), and Darryl Issa (R-Ca), yet you choose to characterize the meetings of the Democratic leader of the House as political theatre. I must confess, hearing this right-wing tripe causes me to reach for the remote and switch to MSNBC or C-Span where I might hear the news, not RNC talking points. Please stop politicizing your coverage and report the facts.

What A Poker Face

US President George W. Bush (L) listens as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks during the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington on 28 March. (AFP/File/Brendan Smialowski)

Pay no attention to that little man in the corner! Seriously, I'd love to have him at one of our poker games. He can't control the emotions on his face.

Nancy Pelosi's Got a Blog

And it's pretty good. Be sure to watch the statements of the Democratic veterans opposing Chimpy's escalation plan.

The Gavel

Another Corporation Smears Democrats

RawStory: An image of bondage gear is then shown, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then depicted in a dominatrix outfit while the associated jingle declares that "Love is free with Pelosi":
This time it's Blue Mountain Greeting Company, a subsidiary of American GreetingsInteractive which is owned by American Greetings.

I won't be buying any American Greetings cards until I see a full, widely-disseminated apology for this crap. Of course, there is no Love Republican Style card. It wouldn't be as easy to photoshop the Rethugs stealing our money to give it to Halliburton and oil companies. And the images of Abu Ghraib aren't exactly holiday fare.

RawStory: National greeting card company carrying 'Love Democratic style' card with Pelosi, others in bondage

Blogtopia* Roundup, Friday January 12, 2007

Crawford Caligula
Best post title of day: Brilliant at Breakfast:

Potent Military Victories To Make Benefit Glorious Image of the Crawford Caligula

Mmmmm.....Crawford Calugula....must use often.

The Left Coaster reports that Pelosi and Hoyer have sold out seniors by watering down Dem changes to the Medicare Part (D)isaster pharmaceutical bill. Since the bill will be vetoed by Crawford Calugula anyway, I can understand Dems saving their energies for more productive fights.

In case one of those lizard brain Bush supporters tells you the Congress gave Bush the authority to attack Iran, tell 'em they're wrong. The foolish Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq (AUMF) which all those dummies in Congress voted for, was the second draft of that bill: The first draft was not limited to Iraq, so it was soundly rejected by Congress. Crawford Caligula can't rely on the AUMF to attack Iran, therefore. Not that he cares about Congress. Link is to Dover Bitch, via Digby.

Steve Gilliard says Bush will leave in disgrace.

Glenn Greenwald, outlines Bush's belief that he has the power to attack Iran without Congressional authorization; he doesn't, but he thinks he does. Woe to the world.

Did anyone else hear Condoleeza Rice say 'augmentation, not escalation' yesterday, and think breast implants? Dependable Renegade did.

Greg Sargent eviscerates Tom Friedman, who really needs eviscerating. Is there a bigger waste of column space at the New York Times? Oh, there's David Brooks.

It's all about the corporate Benjamins: IRS closing corporate audits, taking a fraction of the millions US is owed. Expand this ThinkProgress post, 8th item down.

Day of Firsts

Deval Patrick sworn in as Massachusetts governor: First black governor of Massachusetts, second black governor in U.S. history
Nancy Pelosi sworn in as Speaker of the House: First woman Speaker of the House

Saturday November 18th Blogtopia* Roundup

I want that drink. I need that drink? How long 'til this dumb dinner is over?

Actual caption: President Bush attends a dinner hosted by Vietnam's President Nguyen Minh Triet in Hanoi, November 17, 2006. (Reinhard Krause/Reuters)
New drinking game: Drink every time the media refers to Nancy Pelosi as 'Nancy'!

James Wolcott reports rumors that Bush is indeed drinking again.

Maru the Crankpot (WTF IS IT NOW?) links to this and many other funny posts (scroll up to see the post).

Glenn Greenwald: Cheney Administration is pathological, laughing as they shred the Constitution.

Soon to be former Congressman John Sweeney (R-Wife Beating and Drinking) in trouble again, this time for doctoring police records. Bye bye!

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment:

Bush went to Vietnam and boasted about how we would have won if we had not quit. This was, he said, the lesson for Iraq of the Vietnam War. He managed to be wrong about two wars at once and to anger both his hosts (how churlish!) and the Iraqi public. The American Right never admitted that they lost in Vietnam, thus the Rambo movies and, Melani McCallister argues, the US admiration for Entebbe. Iraq was their chance, they thought, to get it right. Bush had also said insulting things to the Philiippines about how wonderful it was that we had colonized them (and killed 400,000).

Colonialism is over with. When will they get that through their heads?

And actually we can't win in Iraq by just staying. Just like when you are sinking in quicksand, staying put is not a virtue.

Reminds me of the old joke about Bush. What's the difference between Iraq and Vietnam? Bush had a plan to get out of Vietnam. Who knew the plan was not to go until 2006 and to have Air Force One at the ready?


*yes! skippy coined that phrase!

Blogtopia* Roundup

The 2006 election was nine days ago and this is what CNN had on their screen today (Digby)

DC media Kool Kidz Klub apply following purple prose to Nancy Pelosi: too reliant on a tight inner circle; 'she shattered party unity', 'fratricide'; a 'liberal idealist' for supporting conservative Jack Murtha for House Whip; Digby says media are applying Clinton Rules Redux, 'cause

For some reason, when Democrats are in power the press corps immediately goes from being merely shallow to insufferable, sophomoric assholes.

See, also, Glenn Greenwald: Beltway attacks on Nancy Pelosi; John Murtha: Let's Get To Work

Bush Administration hires gynecologist opposed to contraception and abortion to family planning position at Health and Human Services; Digby says: Bush Hires Latest Sacha Baron Cohen Character, with picture of said doctor and his cheesy porn-star moustache. Pharyngula critiques his scientific beliefs and finds them wanting: Bad science? It's OK—just put him in charge of women's health

If you've got the stomach for it, go to the News Blog and watch the video of UCLA campus police (part of LAPD, natch) tasering a student in the library 5 times because he won't leave quietly. And after the first tasering, they are tasering him because he can't get up after being tasered. Sick, sick, police state stuff. (Who would Jesus taser? asks Americablog.)

Billmon with an interesting perspective on newly-Democratic, newly-progressive, newly-elected Virginia Senator Jim Webb: Comrade Webb; read Webb's Wall Street Journal op-ed here: Class Struggle.

Today is Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean's 58th birthday: dailykos: Happy Birthday, Howard Dean!. Go to democrats.com and throw the Dems some money for Howard's birthday. I gave $20.58. Thanks, Howard.


*yes! skippy coined that phrase!

72 Hours

Pelosi in an Armani pantsuit at yesterday's news conference: Clothes for playing with the boys without pretending to be one.
Photo Credit: By Carol T. Powers -- Bloomberg News
That's how long it took the Washington Post to write an article about the first female Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.

Problem? The article is about her clothes.

Yes, you heard that right, the WaPo has gone almost immediately to sexist analysis of the woman's wardrobe.

Because nothing matters about a woman other than what she looks like, right?

Is it 2006 or 1966?

If Ms. Magazine still had the feature, this article would be on the 'No Comment' page at the back of the magazine. Classic, traditional sexist bullshit.

Think I'm overreacting? Do you really think any newspaper in the country will analyze the wardrobe of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid? Of course not.

Jeez.

Washington Post: Muted Tones Of Quiet Authority: A Look Suited To the Speaker

Celebration

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (First ever female House Majority Leader)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Enjoying the post-Democratic win election afterglow.

Some fun links to keep your buzz going:

Freedom (Youtube video)

Suddenly nobody is talking about John Kerry anymore... (TBogg)

Richard Pombo Takes a Pounding (Wonkette)

Dr. Death (Billmon)

Turn, turn, turn (Billmon)

Classic Clinton Riff - Hilarious and So, So True! (Raising Kaine)

Bitch-Chokers Stick Together (Wonkette) […or, as an astute tipster put it, “Congressman McChokey Gets Help From Congressman McSmacky.”]

The admiral sinks Curt Weldon (R-Russia). (Attytood)

Video: John Hall victory speech (and song) (Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record)


WAHHHHHHH!!!!
(President Bush reacts to a reporter's question during his press conference in the wake of Democrats taking over the House and perhaps the Senate. Photo by Pete Souza of the Chicago Tribune.)

Conyers Response to Milbank

Conyers to Milbank

John Conyers has already responded to Milbank's smear of an article. Click on the link above to see photographs of the event (which show how ridiculous Milbank's article really is).

June 17, 2005
Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor
Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman
Mr. Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, D.C. 20071


Dear Sirs:

I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, "Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War," which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.

In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that "only one" member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline "Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight". Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.

The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats "pretended" a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing.

In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to discredit the entire hearing, Milbank quotes one of the witnesses as making an anti-semitic assertion and further describes anti-semitic literature that was being handed out in the overflow room for the event. First, let me be clear: I consider myself to be friend and supporter of Israel and there were a number of other staunchly pro-Israel members who were in attendance at the hearing. I do not agree with, support, or condone any comments asserting Israeli control over U.S. policy, and I find any allegation that Israel is trying to dominate the world or had anything to do with the September 11 tragedy disgusting and offensive.

That said, to give such emphasis to 100 seconds of a 3 hour and five minute hearing that included the powerful and sad testimony (hardly mentioned by Milbank) of a woman who lost her son in the Iraq war and now feels lied to as a result of the Downing Street Minutes, is incredibly misleading. Many, many different pamphlets were being passed out at the overflow room, including pamphlets about getting out of the Iraq war and anti-Central American Free Trade Agreement, and it is puzzling why Milbank saw fit to only mention the one he did.

In a typically derisive and uninformed passage, Milbank makes much of other lawmakers calling me "Mr. Chairman" and says I liked it so much that I used "chairmanly phrases." Milbank may not know that I was the Chairman of the House Government Operations Committee from 1988 to 1994. By protocol and tradition in the House, once you have been a Chairman you are always referred to as such. Thus, there was nothing unusual about my being referred to as Mr. Chairman.

To administer his coup-de-grace, Milbank literally makes up another cheap shot that I "was having so much fun that [I] ignored aides' entreaties to end the session." This did not occur. None of my aides offered entreaties to end the session and I have no idea where Milbank gets that information. The hearing certainly ran longer than expected, but that was because so many Members of Congress persevered under very difficult circumstances to attend, and I thought - given that - the least I could do was allow them to say their piece. That is called courtesy, not "fun."

By the way, the "Downing Street Memo" is actually the minutes of a British cabinet meeting. In the meeting, British officials - having just met with their American counterparts - describe their discussions with such counterparts. I mention this because that basic piece of context, a simple description of the memo, is found nowhere in Milbank's article.

The fact that I and my fellow Democrats had to stuff a hearing into a room the size of a large closet to hold a hearing on an important issue shouldn't make us the object of ridicule. In my opinion, the ridicule should be placed in two places: first, at the feet of Republicans who are so afraid to discuss ideas and facts that they try to sabotage our efforts to do so; and second, on Dana Milbank and the Washington Post, who do not feel the need to give serious coverage on a serious hearing about a serious matter-whether more than 1700 Americans have died because of a deliberate lie. Milbank may disagree, but the Post certainly owed its readers some coverage of that viewpoint.

Sincerely,

John Conyers, Jr.

United We Stand

Joan Vennochi is an excellent columnist in the Boston Globe. Her comments on the Democrats fudging their message are right on:

Blurred messages from Democrats

HERE'S THE new Democratic Party slogan: We stand for nothing but victory.

Or, as Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told The New York Times: "Some people argue about old Democrats and new Democrats. I'm a Vince Lombardi Democrat. Winning is everything."

Inspirational, isn't it? That should lure those Red State voters to the Democrats' side.


**********

Pelosi is also encouraging former Representatative Tim Roemer of Indiana to seek to replace Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe. Roemer, who is Catholic and antiabortion, has a 94 percent rating from the national Right to Life Committee. Pelosi has a 100 percent prochoice voting record, as rated by NARAL, a national organization devoted to a woman's right to choose abortion.

Donna Brazile, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, describes Pelosi's support for Roemer as a way to illustrate the party's new "big tent" commitment. Said Brazile, via e-mail: "As a party, we have a large tent, but our basic values will remain. The Democratic Party's problem is not what we stand for, as much as how we communicate our values. Roemer's personal views will not alter the Democratic platform on choice."

Put aside the practical matter of how the party plans to communicate values through a prochoice platform and a prolife party chairman. This is a way to win?

Roemer as head of the DNC sounds like a desperate effort to figure out which way the wind is blowing, long after the 2004 wind blew the Democrats away. Where does it leave Democrats when President Bush and his allies work to secure the appointment of Supreme Court justices who are anxious to repeal Roe v. Wade?

It also sounds like a way to institutionalize John Kerry's losing campaign strategy: When it comes to controversial issues, duck. Stand for everything and nothing. Whenever possible, avoid direct answers on issues like war and abortion.

**********

Senator Edward M. Kennedy had it right yesterday. In remarks prepared for delivery to the National Press Club, Kennedy said, "We cannot move our party or our nation forward under pale colors and timid voices. We cannot become Republican clones. If we do, we will lose again and deserve to lose."

Currently, Democrats like Pelosi and Emanuel sound confused, not reasonable. Indeed, adrift is a word that comes to mind.

Confusion and drift are ways to kill, not grow, a political party. But it appears to be the path of spooked Democrats after the Nov. 2 election loss.