congressman conyers' hearing on the downing street memo--and what's wrong over at NPR?

note from this blogger *was npr covering for bush administration by ignoring testimony of ray mcgovern?


Friday 17th June 2005
Conyers’ Hearing on The Memo: This evidence is so compelling, it must be investigated- period.


http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6515

Yesterday’s phenomenal testimony at the John Conyers’ Hearing on the Downing Street Memo left many jaws gaping. All news organizations are now faced with a choice, are they going to continue to cover for the Bush Administration, or are they going to cover The Downing Street Memo story like it ought to be covered?

For a taste of the hearing, download this audio clip- Ray McGovern’s opening statement. McGovern 6.5 min, 3mb mp3 (right-click > save as)

Testimony was given by former Ambassador Joe Wilson, Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan, Constitutional Lawyer John Bonifaz, and 27yr CIA Veteran Ray McGovern. Thanks to Republican Denial, the hearing was held in a tiny room of the Capitol Basement. Despite the cramped quarters, dozens of Democratic Representatives showed up (122 signed on to Conyers’ letter), but only about 10 could make it into the room at any one time, so they came in shifts.

Republicans across America need to know how their party leaders in DC are acting. From Conyersblog.us:

At approximately 2:15 PM (with hearing scheduled to begin at 2:30), the Republicans scheduled 11 consecutive floor votes, lasting until approximately 4 PM.

Democratic Congressmembers had to take turns shuffling back and forth between the House Floor and the basement all afternoon. In other words, Republican leaders:

* refused to call a full hearing themselves
* refused to give Democrats a room to hold their hearing in
* scheduled a bunch of votes timed to intentionally disrupt the Conyers’ Hearings.

One has to ask, what are the Republican leaders afraid of? The same goes for the national news networks... what are the executives so afraid of?

NPR weighed in with a ludicrous story on All Things Considered, shamelessly pimping the Bush line. This was the most lopsided, pro-bush propaganda piece I’ve heard on NPR- and that’s saying something! They played one 40 sec clip from Cindy Sheehan, then the ’journalist’ downplayed the minutes of a top secret meeting as meaningless. Every twist to the story was bent to favor Bush, it was comical when she said there were four panelists, but listed only three- she ’forgot’ to mention 27yr CIA vet Ray McGovern. NPR listeners, please compare NPR’s version vs. this clip from the hearing itself- Ray McGovern 06-16-05, the fellow NPR’s reporter ’forgot’ to mention.

Of the six national US television networks, only PBS Newshour mentioned Ray McGovern at all- in fact he was a guest on their show, albeit alongside a Bush representative. NBC, ABC, Fox, and CNN ’covered’ the hearing (CBS did not), but for some reason Mr. McGovern was not mentioned in any of their stories. Why? Because Mr. McGovern gave some of the most compelling testimony- from McGovern’s PBS interview:

"The facts here are this: On July 23, 2002, Richard Dearlove, the head of Britain’s CIA, came back from a long visit to Washington where he consulted with the top U.S. officials including George Tenet, his opposite number. His big news was threefold: There had been a major change and now war was seen as inevitable. The president was determined to remove Saddam Hussein by force, and force regime change that way; that this was to be, in quotes, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.

Now let me translate that from British English -- justified by the thought that Iraq has all this weapons of mass destruction, and is likely to give it to terrorists. And finally, when Jack Straw, the foreign minister said, well, the evidence on weapons of mass destruction is rather thin was his word, Dearlove, the head of the British intelligence says, no problem; the intelligence and the facts are being fixed around the policy.

This is documentary. This is a secret minutes of this meeting prepared the same day; it’s of a different species of all the other circumstantial evidence we have that the president had long since decided to do war. And so the circumstances, you can forget circumstantial, we have a flaming -- we have a smoking gun here, and we have something equivalent to the Nixon tapes on Watergate."

John Bonifaz, lawyer and co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org, said the lack of interest by congressional Republicans in the Downing Street memo is like Congress during Nixon’s presidency saying "we don’t want" the Watergate tapes.

This was one of the key points made at the hearing:
The evidence is so compelling, it must be investigated- period.

Any failure to do so is a failure to uphold the Constitution. There is no legal or logical grounds not to investigate- the only reason is to protect Bush and Co.

Republican Congressman have been put into a tough position- do they continue to side with Bush when the evidence is so damning? All the evidence indicates that Bush and Cheney deliberately lied to start they war, can they really remain silent in the face of such damning testimony? If they do, then these Congressmen and their media counterparts may also be held accountable in the future.


by : Joe Reinhart
Friday 17th June 2005