Posted on 11/08/2003 5:57:13 AM PST by Laverne
Sen. Pat Roberts lashed out Friday at Congressional Democrats, accusing them of using his inquiry into pre-Iraq-war intelligence for political gain.
"Until this reprehensible attack plan and strategy to derail this committee's important work is addressed, I'm afraid it will be impossible to return to business as usual," Roberts said on the Senate floor.
He said the investigation's quality is threatened unless Democrats "accept responsibility for destroying" the committee's nonpartisanship.
Roberts was one of a procession of Republicans decrying a memo prepared by Democratic staff on the Select Senate Committee on Intelligence, which Roberts leads.
The memo, leaked to Fox News commentator Sean Hannity on Tuesday, outlines a strategy Democrats on the committee could use to maximize political gains from the Roberts investigation. That, Roberts said, shows a lack of seriousness on the Democrats' part.
"They have damned the inquiry before it's finished," he said.
Democrats interpret the memo, and the motivation behind it, differently.
Frustrated by what they consider to be a too-limited investigation -- one that only looks at intelligence agency conduct without asking how the Bush administration used that intelligence in making its case for war -- they say they were only contemplating strategies to get past GOP stonewalling that was intended to protect the president.
"Numerous questions have been raised" about how Bush may have manipulated intelligence data to lead the nation to war, said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. But Roberts has "rejected" any questioning leading in that direction, he said.
Reid also said the memo was likely stolen from committee Democrats and that because the information -- property of the Intelligence Committee -- mysteriously ended up in Republican hands, that matter is as serious as Republican demands to find out who wrote the memo.
But that view is being drowned out in many media outlets as conservative talk radio shows and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and other publications -- plus dozens of Republican lawmakers -- have weighed in against what's being called "memogate."
On Friday, the Journal said in an editorial that until Democrats fired whoever wrote the memo, the Intelligence Committee should be "shut down, cleaned out and reconstituted later, preferably after the next election."
Roberts wouldn't go that far, saying the investigation would continue, whether or not Democrats apologized. But the tide is clearly turning toward a demand for an apology before the committee gets back to work.
When the memo first leaked Tuesday, Roberts' tone toward committee Democrats was more conciliatory. Roberts didn't attend a GOP news conference the next day criticizing the memo.
That wasn't the case Friday as Senate GOP leaders decided to keep pressing the memo. Roberts said he was upset that only one Democratic senator, Zell Miller of Georgia, had criticized the memo since Tuesday.
"I expressed an (early) interest in getting back to work in the Intelligence Committee," Roberts said, but "some senators across the aisle have taken this sentiment as an expression of readiness to close the books and pretend like it never happened.
"They are mistaken."
But that view is being drowned out in many media outlets as conservative talk radio shows and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times and other publications -- plus dozens of Republican lawmakers -- have weighed in against what's being called "memogate."
All views are not created equal, and the fact that this absurd dem spin is being "drowned out" is a good thing.
When I heard it yesterday on a couple MSNBC panel discussions I was appalled at this attempt to divert attention from the memo and its content and try to once again make the Republicans the bad guy when they are not.
Focus on the wrong-doers in this case and don't start beating up our own. The last few days have demonstrated Roberts is feeling the pressure and we do not need him to step down and the spin that would ensue.
Wrong-doers = dems
Let's keep that in mind.
Toll free number for the US Capitol....1-877-762-8762
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