Discussing Impeachment With the LA Times

To the Editor:

Re this article.

You wrote: "Any impeachment motion - ultimately voted on by the House of Representatives - would have to pass through the House Judiciary Committee, to which Waters belongs. Organizers could not definitively name another 'pro-impeach' representative on that committee."

Congress Members Keith Ellison and Hank Johnson, as well as Waters, are members of the House Judiciary Committee and cosponsors of H Res 333, the bill you mentioned in your next sentence. They are three of the 14 you counted in your next sentence.

This could have been determined by using Google for 1 minute. Did you think that your readers were less interested in the facts than in whether you could find an activist who - like yourself - forgot who was on which committees?

Or did you want to downplay the impeachment movement? Given the slant of the rest of your article, including your choice of pundits' unsupported assertions to quote, you can take that as a rhetorical question.

David Swanson.

Reply From Reporter Howard Blume:

David -- Thanks for writing in. Signing onto the proposed Cheney articles of impeachment is not the same thing as signing onto a bill for a Bush impeachment, as the impeachment organizers realized when they answered my question. To this point, there is no bill for a Bush impeachment, although Waters is clear in saying she would support it. I think the paragraph could have been clearer in distinguishing between Bush and Cheney, but I don't think there is an error there. But if you can offer evidence to the contrary I would certainly put in a correction. --hb

Second Letter From David Swanson:

Howard,

Are you trying to fool yourself, or imagining that I will fall for that? The headline of the article mentions impeaching bush and cheney. The first sentence mentions impeaching Bush and Cheney. The second sentence mentions removing Bush and Cheney. The third sentence mentions Bush policies. The fourth sentence mentions "Bush-Cheney policies". The fifth sentence mentions an action taken by Bush. The next four sentences don't mention either gentleman. Then we come to the two sentences I quoted, which are followed by this one:

"In the House at large, they tally 14 like-minded lawmakers, most of whom have signed on to articles of impeachment against Cheney that were introduced by Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio), who is running for president." Did you and your imaginary friend who knows all your secrets form a pact that that was supposed to mean that some unspecified activists believed 14 Congress Members want to impeach BUSH? How were any actual readers supposed to catch on? There is no bill to impeach Bush. There are ZERO signatures on a bill to impeach Bush. You made no mention of such a thing in your article. Rep. Waters' speech - at least the part I've seen, and nothing else shows up in your little article - was about impeaching Cheney. She cited the number 14, because I wrote an article a couple of days ago with the number 14. That is the number of Congress Members signed on or very likely to sign onto H Res 333 (to impeach Cheney) before July 10. The number of Members who want to impeach BUSH is much smaller or larger, depending on whether you base it on action or rhetoric, but it is by no means 14.

This may all make sense to some unnamed organizer you spoke with, but your article was published for a larger audience, which can't have had any clue. More fundamentally, taking your article on its own terms as you dictate them, it remains dishonest. You cite 14 members as wanting to impeach Bush, and you claim that only one of them is on the Judiciary Committee. On the contrary, three are.

David

Second Response From Howard Blume: David –

I'm sorry you didn't like the article, to which the paper devoted nearly an entire page of the newspaper along with two large pictures. The organizers referred to are the two gentlemen who organized the event, one of whom is the head of the impeachement center. --hb

Third Letter From David Swanson:

You claimed 14 Congress Members want to impeach (bush, cheney, whatever you say) and only 1 is on Judiciary. This is FALSE. Three are on Judiciary. Please correct it.

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