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Pat Roberts should be protecting democracy, not President Bush
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By Mike Cuenca | July 15, 2003
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The J-W's embarrassing fawning over Senator Pat Roberts in the face of
his obvious protection of the Bush administration through his role as
chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee is astounding. To proclaim
that Roberts "will not stand in the way of disclosing pertinent
information even if it might be harmful or embarrassing to the Bush
administration" is like saying that the Kansas River is unpolluted.
The GOP leadership knows that open hearings on Watergate doomed Nixon's
presidency. They don't want Bush facing that same peril. Roberts is
dutifully fulfilling a partisan role by blocking open hearings and
doing his best to assure that Bush will be protected from truly
democratic, public scrutiny of his actions.
The June 19 editorial in
The Nation argued that Roberts' actions signal "that he's more
interested in hiding than seeking answers. His obstructionism is a good
argument for the formation of an independent commission, which should
hold televised hearings and call witnesses."
Paul Krugman, in the July
15 New York Times, wrote that Roberts "seems more concerned about
protecting his party's leader than protecting the country." And that
"those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war, at
the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by
corrupting the system even further."
What's at stake if Roberts
succeeds in preventing full disclosure? The lives of U.S. servicemen
and women, our nation's credibility, and how such intelligence
failures/misuses may affect our ability as a nation to protect
ourselves from real threats.
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