DOWNING STREET: The odor is just starting to waft across the pond.

[BigBearJohn]

"Bill Clinton nearly went down for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, but the Bush Administration, whose members -- if the memo's content is true -- lied before Congress on numerous occasions, are getting away scot-free.

Perhaps the funny smell isn't emanating from Downing Street but from the television."

"What is particularly disturbing about the memo is that, despite having been written a year before the invasion of Iraq, it says "It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action ... but the case was thin." In the same paragraph, it says, "Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran." In other words, the memo details early efforts to cook the facts and create a case for going to war with Iraq.

"Assuming the memo is real, it is basically concrete evidence that Bush, Cheney and other members of his administration lied to the American public and, more damningly, to Congress, leading us into an unjust war. It also means that the Bush administration has the blood of 1,600 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis on its hands, not to mention all the money that has been wasted and all the embarrassment our country has endured.

"Unfortunately, the mainstream media have decided that a supposedly pedophilic pop star and an adulterous bride are more important issues. Not only that, but you can be impeached for lying to Congress about a sexual dalliance with an intern, but get away with wasting tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars."

Original: http://www.bsudailynews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/05/23/429181b60def6

[coloradodem2005]

1. This won't hold.

It will be disappeared. Bet on it.

[BigBearJohn]

2. Nope. I DU believe! Conyers said he had an OVERWHELMING response

What you think about, comes about.

Whether you think you can, or think you can't... you're right.

I know a man in the ranks who will always be in the ranks.
Why? It was simply because he hadn't the ability to get things done!

What you SEE is what you GET

and finally...

People who say it can't be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

When the skies are brighter canary yellow
I forget ev'ry cloud I've ever seen,
So they called me a cockeyed optimist
Immature and incurably green.

I have heard people rant and rave and bellow
That we're done and we might as well be dead,
But I'm only a cockeyed optimist
And I can't get it into my head.

I hear the human race
Is fallin' on its face
And hasn't very far to go,
But ev'ry whippoorwill
Is sellin' me a bill,
And tellin' me it just ain't so.

I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I'm stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can't get it out of my heart!
Not this heart...

[Eloriel]

5. Conyers is going to have to do a little more than push papers back &

forth.

I love the guy, and I do realize he's "building a case" but our boys and girls on The Hill are going to have to gear up just a little bit stronger, put some teeth in those letters and stuff, and some muscle in their actions. Hire a PR STUNT firm or something -- make some noise SOMEHOW. Otherwise they will just push paper and more paper til they find themselves buried in it --- and quite dead (and I mean that literally, either from natural causes or, you know, "suicided").

Like the old saying goes: if you keep doing what you're doing (writing wonderful letters and getting nice little petitions) you're going to keep getting the same results (NOTHING!!!!!!).

Gotta do something very different, shake things up a bit.

[lady lib]

6. I emailed Conyers with the same suggestion

- that he hire a PR firm.

[FreedomAngel82]

27. I agree

There has to be someway to shake things up. But I don't know any media outlet that will touch this except for Olbermann. :shrug:

[ailsagirl]

29. He should hire some of US!! We come up with great ideas!!

And we'd probably do it gratis, so great is our need to stop this insanity!!!

:spank:

[bunny planet]

21. Right you are. A commercial perhaps or a billboard, print ads.

Publicity. A giant mailing of the Downing Street Memo itself to every possible household in America. Can't it be done?

[Viva_La_Revolution]

35. I sure liked that idea about marching down the the editor's office of WP..

and demanding that they run the story.

- from the Media Hearing -

[merh]

15. BigBearJohn

Please go to the DU link in my signature and post about this.
It belongs in this thread. The thread should still be active. :hi:

Thank you so much :hug:

I DU Believe!!!

[BigBearJohn]

37. will do!

[merh]

39. thanks so much!

:yourock:

[FreedomAngel82]

26. I'm hoping

Keep sending positive vibes and thoughts to Mr. Conyers and this effort or prayer. Whichever you feel more comfortable with. Don't forget to keep spreading the word around to people you know online and offline and if you listen to a progressive station and they haven't mentioned the memo yet Email or call in (if you can) and ask them why they haven't mentioned it on the air and encourage them too. This is huge and needs to be explored. We all know it's true. All that has to happen is to find the truth. Question from me: Can Tony Blair be prosecuted by our reps or do the British have to take care of that?

[Mnemosyne]

34. Another attempt to post!

"I could say life is just a bowl of Jello
And appear more intelligent and smart,
But I'm stuck like a dope
With a thing called hope,
And I can't get it out of my heart!
Not this heart..."

I love this. Hope and optomism after a long dark night!:hi: :kick:

[deutsey]

4. You are correct, sir.

:evilfrown:

I don't give a fuck what kind of response Conyers has had, this won't amount to jack shit, despite its smoking-gun proof of Bush lying.

[lala_rawraw]

22. I will say again:

There are millions of people fighting for this. There are a few journalists reporting this, but they are reporting it and it is getting out.

Don't discourage people. We need everyone ready these next two weeks. Patriot Act II begins. I will need you bright eyed and bushy tailed.

[goclark]

25. You are so right

We need to get behind this effort.

We can never give up the fight for justice and we will not be bullied into believing that the Chimp will reign foreverf more.

Remember Watergate - the chips kept falling in little bits but bit by bit they kept falling.

[FreedomAngel82]

28. Exactly

If you keep it going it will eventually get where it needs to be. Conyers has experience in this so I trust him to do what he can.

[Im with Rosey]

33. THANK YOU!

I wish we had more positive attitudes and LESS negativity. We are fighting an uphill battle, probably a long battle, wringing our hands isn't going to get us anywhere.

[lady lib]

3. Well-written by a junior journalism major.

Did you see the reader comment at the bottom? Maybe DUers should add some comments.

[babylonsister]

7. Well, I'm a diehard

optimist, so I've got to believe this is going to go somewhere. You are not alone! :patriot:

[BigBearJohn]

8. Thanks Babbylonsister! You're the best.

I will not be a defeatist. How can you win anything if
have already decided you're going to lose before you even
reach the starting gate? Fooey.

[rodeodance]

18. nice to see it hit a college newspaper also

[ginnyinWI]

9. Have patience--it will gain momentum

It made page A6 in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel this morning--almost a half-page article, too.

[BigBearJohn]

10. That's the key -- MOMENTUM

Conyers said he has an OVERWHELMING response.
I take him at his word.

[mcg]

13. Maybe some massive protests would help.

[w8liftinglady]

17. Really!

We should plan some organized boycott/protest for next week,to show solidarity for Conyers,et al.
http://supportourribbons.com/maker_show.php?id=8592
or maybe make our own ribbons to support the troops

[rodeodance]

19. really--i will have to find it

[Cleita]

11. I just heard on AAR that we were bombing Iraq in May of 2002

to provoke Saddam into doing something we could declare war on him. Am I imagining stuff? I haven't seen a word of it here or on the news. They are prattling on about smog control devices in cars?

[BigBearJohn]

12. Go here for more info:

http://rawstory.com/exclusives/byrne/conyers_downing_street_letter_rumsfeld_529

[Cleita]

14. This is incredible.

Bush should be in the slammer. Thanks for the link.

[BigBearJohn]

16. I second that emotion!

[chknltl]

32. GREAT LINK nt

[dweller]

24. here's an article

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1632566,00.html

from a foreign source of course.

dp

[Cleita]

30. Thanks for the link.

Both Blair and *w should be made accountable for their duplicity.

[toddaa]

20. After Valerie Plame, I'm just a bit too cynical

The average American just doesn't give a shit. Sure, they don't really like GW, but as long as there are no planes flying into buildings, he's got a blank check to do whatever he wants, when it comes fighting the War on (some) Terror.

[LynnTheDem]

23. "assuming the memo is real..." HELLO it was released by UK parliament

members. Members of Britain's government.

But it's Party Uber Alles for republicans; no republican-owned government is going to impeach a republican president for ANYTHING.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. It's getting some ink out here in Flyover Land:

Today's editorial in the Minneapolis Star Tribune refers to the Downing Street memo as a "smoking gun":

"The "smoking gun," as some call it, surfaced on May 1 in the London Times....

At a time when the White House was saying it had "no plans" for an invasion, the British document says Dearlove reported that there had been "a perceptible shift in attitude" in Washington. "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. ...

It turns out that former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill were right. Both have been pilloried for writing that by summer 2002 Bush had already decided to invade.
Walter Pincus, writing in the Washington Post on May 22, provides further evidence that the administration did, indeed, fix the intelligence on Iraq to fit a policy it had already embraced: invasion and regime change. ...

On the day before Bush's speech, the CIA's Berlin station chief warned that the source for some of what Bush would say was untrustworthy. Bush said it anyway. He based part of his most important annual speech to the American people on a single, dubious, unnamed source. The source was later found to have fabricated his information....

As this bloody month of car bombs and American deaths -- the most since January -- comes to a close, as we gather in groups small and large to honor our war dead, let us all sing of their bravery and sacrifice. But let us also ask their forgiveness for sending them to a war that should never have happened. In the 1960s it was Vietnam. Today it is Iraq. Let us resolve to never, ever make this mistake again. Our young people are simply too precious."

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5427823.html

[converted_democrat]

36. I normally don't operate this way, but.............

I have plastered-----"Do you know what the Downing St. Memo is?" on every message board I've ever come into contact with. I want this party started already!

[BigBearJohn]

38. NOW you're talking!! We need more people like you who get the word out!

[jarnocan]

40. Petitons and letters but then do more....

I am sure this is already on here somewhere but just in case; Rep. John Conyers petition to get Bush to respond to the Downing St. memo-letter; <http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/index.html> link is on R side of page. http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/39>
Tell congress to investigate; We have a right to demand the truth about why the BushInc.invaded Iraq ;here is a ready made form, but you may add comments, or just send it!
if link above doesn't work go here;
<http://www.impeachcentra l.com/>
<http://www.afterdownings treet.org/> also worth checking out! THANKS!!!!
<http://jarnocan.blogspot.com/>more petitons, above and other links. I also had written a petition reguarding this, can link to it from my blog.
I have started a post card caaign concerning media initmidation and to support verified voting and meaningful elction refrom. It all does relate really.
We need free and fair elections, and a free and fair media for our democracy. We have to demand that this NOT be just continue to be blown off. We need to blow the lid off and let the truth bubble out!