Minority Report

August 4, 2006 4:52 PM

The Constitution in Crisis:"The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War, and Illegal Domestic Surveillance." The 350-page Final Investigative Report of the House Judiciary Committee Democratic Staff "identifies 26 laws and regulations Bush Administration may have violated." [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha (29 comments total)

From the summary [PDF]:

In brief, we have found that there is substantial evidence the President, the Vice-President and other high ranking members of the Bush Administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war in Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for such war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq; permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their Administration; and approved domestic surveillance that is both illegal and unconstitutional.

posted by kirkaracha at 4:52 PM on August 4, 2006

Maybe THIS....never mind.
posted by telstar at 4:55 PM on August 4, 2006

I wonder if Bush can file signing statements retroactively to 1787 and say that the executive branch has no intention of enforcing the bill of rights.
posted by MrLint at 5:06 PM on August 4, 2006

Just the democrats drafted it? Too bad it'll just be discounted as cheap partisan politics and result in nothing, because it really seems like something illegal happened.
posted by mathowie at 5:07 PM on August 4, 2006

Allow me to be the first to say, "So what are you going to do about it?"
posted by Pastabagel at 5:08 PM on August 4, 2006

Just the democrats drafted it? Too bad it'll just be discounted as cheap partisan politics and result in nothing, because it really seems like something illegal happened.

Yeah, just the democrats. So of course it will be ignored. But if there is a democratic surge in November, the material could be used to impeach the president, or at least have hearings.
posted by delmoi at 5:09 PM on August 4, 2006

I wonder how many divisions the rule of law has.
posted by Freen at 5:16 PM on August 4, 2006

But if there is a democratic surge in November, the material could be used to impeach the president, or at least have hearings.

Hahahahaha.

We'll be too busy attacking Iran to do something like that. See, the neocons have found the perfect excuse. Nuclear Weapons? Doesn't work.

Protecting Israel? Works great. The Dems are lining up to prove that they're not afraid to help Israel.
posted by eriko at 5:21 PM on August 4, 2006

Why are democrats wasting their time on this stuff when they could be saving us from flag burners, video games, and the homosexual agenda?
posted by swell at 5:22 PM on August 4, 2006

My prediction of what comes of this monumental undertaking and massively important document?

Nothing. Not one damn thing.

And for this, we have only ourselves to blame.
posted by AbnerDoon at 5:33 PM on August 4, 2006

Maybe THIS....never mind.

No.., go ahead and finish. I just want to hear it.
posted by LordSludge at 5:54 PM on August 4, 2006

when they could be saving us from flag burners, video games, and the homosexual agenda?

you forgot braindead women in Florida hospitals
posted by matteo at 5:55 PM on August 4, 2006

And for this, we have only ourselves to blame

no, blame the media, too. if the media picks it up, they'll be attacked as -- at best -- partisans and at worst traitors (undermining the war on terrar, etc). working the ref and all. it works

the "liberal media", they're too scared to give legs to stories like this one (stories that, to be fair, require some modicum of attention from the viewer/reader, unlike, say, stories about redneck runaway brides and serial killer arrests). most media people are reduced to a vaguely stenographical role, and they're not smart enough to know that it's professional suicide
posted by matteo at 6:01 PM on August 4, 2006

There isn't any Liberal Media, unless you're talking about Mother Jones, The Utne Reader, and the like. All those surveys that show how most reporters and editors are Democrats - so what? Most people who work for GM are probably Democrats, too. Does that mean GM makes Liberal cars? Any reporter or editor who works for a major news outlet would find themselves out of a job if they applied a liberal bias to the news. Look who owns the US news media - here are the six largest:
1. Time Warner Inc.
2. Viacom Inc.
3. Walt Disney Company
4. General Electric Company
5. Cox Enterprises
6. News Corporation (Rupert Murdoch)

The only consistently identifiable slant to the mainstream media is that it's pro-corporation. Because our government is currently in the hands of Radical Capitalists (who call themselves Conservative), the media's pro-corporate slant means they usually fall in line behind the Administration party line. Liberal? Only in fantasy.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:37 PM on August 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

The facts of the report aside, my first impression is that its production was quite unprofessional. The summary document is a PDF which was clearly scanned from a printed copy (ugh), and contains this lovely grammatical construct:

As further detailed in the Report, there is evidence that these actions violate a number of federal laws, including:

* Making False Statements to Congress, for example, saying you have learned Iraq is attempting to buy uranium from Niger, when you have been warned by the CIA that this is not the case.

"You"? "for example"? While the report should be judged on its factual content, poor presentation and grammar don't help.
posted by bbuda at 6:53 PM on August 4, 2006

Oh, it gets better. There's an HTML version with clickable footnotes (which is nice) but broken OCR. All the apostrophes are replaced with equals signs for some reason. And be warned that that's a very large single HTML page, which caused my Firefox to stutter for a minute or so.
posted by bbuda at 6:57 PM on August 4, 2006

Well, with the Castro Brothers alookin' mighty frail, Cuba's alookin' good fer a regime changin distraction like thing.... right Turd Blossom? What we got?
posted by R. Mutt at 7:08 PM on August 4, 2006

Time for another "crisis in democracy" ?
posted by Dareos at 7:26 PM on August 4, 2006

Conyers on why he produced the report.
posted by homunculus at 7:46 PM on August 4, 2006

most media people are reduced to a vaguely stenographical role

And here I thought most media people filling a steganographical role.
posted by ryoshu at 8:57 PM on August 4, 2006

Goodness. No one ever painted a rosy picture of the Iraq war. You'd have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where they've been excessively optimistic. The media understands this is tough stuff.
Yeah, I got suckered by it the first time. Maybe, just maybe something was going on, maybe some folks knew better than I did and the situation was dire and we had to invade. Achtung, chucko, nuh, uh, not this time pal.
Fool me once, shame on, shame on you...fool me twice and you wind up in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
posted by Smedleyman at 8:59 PM on August 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

"And for this, we have only ourselves to blame."

Speak for yourself. I voted for Carlin.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

What are ya gonna do about it? What the hell are you talking about? This is too little too late and I'll tell you why.

"There isn't any Liberal Media..."

This has not been about liberal versus conservative. It never was. There is no republican versus democrat. There is no partisanship. There are politicians. They may go in to make the world a better place, but by the time they are through they've lost their soul and their compassion for their fellow human beings. Every man jack one of them. There are human beings with souls and there are power hungry unscrupulous elitists. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Us versus them is a smoke screen, to keep you from realizing who the real 'them' are. This is not a football game. It's not shirts versus skins, but they had so many believing that it was for so long. Sleight of hand. The wolves took over the henhouse, and we're crying over the cracked shells now? We've been living in a corporate oligarchy parading itself as a democratic republic, for years, and people are only now beginning to see it? Michael Moore tried to get people to see this back when he made Roger & Me, and people responded by telling fat jokes. Fuckers.

It's about corporate interests versus individual rights. It always has been. The good of the one versus the good of the elitist many. Guess who won? The revolution will not be televised because big business controls the media. Not liberal media. Not conservative media. Corporate media. The needs of the many are overshadowed by the needs of the few.

It's pointless to fight. It's too late. He who has the gold makes the rules, and the house always wins. Money may make some people's world go around. Not those who don't have it. You're more than welcome to try, but it's too late to get out and push.

It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine. Sit back, have a beer with me, and watch the world turn...
posted by ZachsMind at 10:52 PM on August 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Goodness. No one ever painted a rosy picture of the Iraq war. You'd have a dickens of a time trying to find instances where they've been excessively optimistic.

A dickens of a time.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 11:00 PM on August 4, 2006

It's about corporate interests versus individual rights. It always has been.

Since the the late 1800s at least. Our Founding Fathers.us hated the corporations because they weren't part of them.
posted by ryoshu at 11:20 PM on August 4, 2006

"we have only ourselves to blame"

Don't blame me - my vote wasn't counted.

:)
posted by -harlequin- at 1:07 AM on August 5, 2006

> We've been living in a corporate oligarchy parading itself as a democratic republic, for years, and
> people are only now beginning to see it?

The operant claim is that the US is less of a monied-class oligarchy and more of a democratic republic that any previous world-dominating power. Think British India; think Spanish Conquistadores; think Roman Gaul; think Genghis Khan. See? That's marvelous progress, and progressives should be happy as clams. But noooooo, we're congenitally dissatisfied.

> Michael Moore tried to get people to see this back when he made Roger & Me, and people responded
> by telling fat jokes. Fuckers.

Michael's so fat, when he cross-dresses he goes out in stiletto heels and comes home in flats.
posted by jfuller at 7:33 AM on August 5, 2006

jfuller's so lame, Max Cleland offered to give him a hand.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:15 PM on August 5, 2006

That was rude of me. I apologize to the community.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:07 PM on August 5, 2006

Yeah, that's not a very nice thing to say about Max.
posted by Balisong at 11:59 AM on August 6, 2006