Exact text of Hannity memo - what's the big deal? Looks legit to me.

[Loonman]

We have carefully reviewed our options under the rules and believe we have identified the best approach. Our plan is as follows:

1) Pull the majority along as far as we can on issues that may lead to major new disclosures regarding improper or questionable conduct by administration officials. We are having some success in that regard.

For example, in addition to the President's State of the Union speech, the chairman has agreed to look at the activities of the office of the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department.

The fact that the chairman supports our investigations into these offices and cosigns our requests for information is helpful and potentially crucial. We don't know what we will find but our prospects for getting the access we seek is far greater when we have the backing of the majority.

2) Assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to attach to any interim or final reports the committee may release. Committee rules provide this opportunity and we intend to take full advantage of it.

In that regard we may have already compiled all the public statements on Iraq made by senior administration officials. We will identify the most exaggerated claims. We will contrast them with the intelligence estimates that have since been declassified. Our additional views will also, among other things, castigate the majority for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry.

The Democrats will then be in a strong position to reopen the question of establishing an Independent Commission

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time. But we can only do so once.

The best time to do so will probably be next year, either:

A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report, thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public. Additional views on the interim report (1). The announcement of our independent investigation (2). And (3) additional views on the final investigation. Or:

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue, we would attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the use of intelligence.

In the meantime, even without a specifically authorized independent investigation, we continue to act independently when we encounter footdragging on the part of the majority. For example, the FBI Niger investigation was done solely at the request of the vice chairman. We have independently submitted written requests to the DOD and we are preparing further independent requests for information.

SUMMARY: Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq. Yet we have an important role to play in revealing the misleading, if not flagrantly dishonest, methods and motives of senior administration officials who made the case for unilateral preemptive war.

[Skittles]

1. there is no big deal

Sean Hannity lives in his little neocon fantasy world.

[Loonman]

2. If anything, he should be charged

For accepting stolen Federal property.

[radwriter0555]

3. They're pissed because we're using logic, reasoning and advance

preparation to undermine their lying, cheating, stealing, thuggery and oppression.

[EarlG]

4. The right always claims the left are "playing politics"

but so what? The Dems want to nail the administration's balls to the wall over this, and the administration deserves it. They got themselves into this.

Of course Hannity will overlook the fact that the administration already admitted that the entire war was scheduled for maximum political effect in the first place:

"More than one Democrat, and not a few cynics of every party, have suggested that the timing of the anti-Hussein crusade is no coincidence. Karl Rove has been counseling the politics of war for months, and Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card recently acknowledged that "from a marketing standpoint, you don't roll out a new product in August." It's a reassuring thought: Like the theatre, the new television season, and football, war plays best when the air is crisp and the scent of burning ballots is in the air."

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-10-04/pols_capitol.html

I guess they don't like it when the shoe's on the other foot.

[Loonman]

10. Exactly, this is how politcs works

Repubs and their lackeys like Hannity don't want to play if they can't play dirty.

[htuttle]

5. It seems that Hannity is accusing the Democrats of...

...being an opposition party.

I have to admit, judging by the recent 'vote' on the $87 Billion (and disgraceful lack of attendance), he might be making an unfounded accusation.

However, it does seem he's accusing the Democrats of not being Republicans.

I still haven't really been able to figure out this so-called 'memo scandal' yet. There just doesn't seem to be a there, there.

[Avalux]

6. I have a question

about this supposed memo. Jay Rockefeller stated last night that it wasn't even a memo, just something put together by his staff to kick around. My question is - did it come from him (Rockefeller) or a staffer? If it isn't a legitimate memo signed by Rockefeller it means nothing. Means nothing regardless - nothing there that would be considered "treasonous".

[jmcgowanjm]

7. Electronic Watergate

The real issues here are, first,
that with the issuing
of the letters co-signed by both
Senators Pat Roberts
and Jay Rockefeller last week, to
the White House, Pentagon,
and State Department, the
intelligence-fakery probe
was gathering momentum, and
heading in the direction
of Cheney and his closest cronies.
-Rosalinda

source: The Hill, Nov. 6

AN ELECTRONIC WATERGATE. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV),
the ranking Democrat on the Senate
Intelligence Committee,
got more to the point yesterday,
saying that Republicans may have stolen the
memo
by breaking into a Committee computer.

"I would suggest to my colleagues that there is
reason for concern today,
and it is not for the content of this draft staff
memo," he stated.

[tom_paine]

12. Of course it is Electronic Watergate.

Electronic Watergate happens every day and now with PATRIOT and TIA, it will happen even more frequently. This is not news, and certainly the Imperial Subjects wouldn't give a shit even if they heard about it.

The Busheviks do EVERYTHING the Nixonviks did and much more.

Much MUCH more.

"Electronic Watergate" is a laugh. The tippiest tip of the reeking iceberg that has torn a Titanic-sized hole in the Old American Republic.

She's goin' down. 2004 is our last chance.

[tom_paine]

8. Whether or not the charges make sense have very little to do with anything

Just where do you think you're living. This is Imperial Amerika, where history is written afresh every morning by the Party-Loyal Right-Wing Sub-Media.

Where any lie can be laundered into "conventional wisdom" by the sheer repetition of the trumpet blasts of the Mighty Wurlitzer, where any truth, no matter how factually demonstrable, can be obfuscated by those same blasts.

It matters NOTHING what the memo actually says. Nothing at all.

[bleedingheart]

9. It smells like Watergate to me... Why are they going into our trash?

Personally the memo sounds normal to me. There is nothing in there that says the Democrats are doing anything horrid.

What it does prove is that there is something fishy in the administration and the Democrats are starting to figure it out and they are going to make sure they get the most bang for their buck.

...Does anyone else think that Rove wouldn't be doing the same????

[Warren Stuart]

11. Pure Propaganda

Take a legitimate point of view, throw enough mud at it, and some of the mud will stick. This is a sign of their "desperation", things are starting to unravel, this is how they handle pressure. They demonize their opponents.

What are political operatives doing, rummaging through the trashbins of their opponents? This is truly frightening and deserves an investigation. Where is the security on Capitol Hill? Someone should be fired (or arrested) for this.

The Democrats are not allowed to stratigize? This is the beginning of Facism.

[tom_paine]

13. More than the beginning

We are well into 1935 now.

I can guarantee you one thing. NO ONE will be prosecuted or even investigated on this.

NO ONE. 100% certainty.

Like asking if someone was going to hold Uday Hussein accountable for shooting the Olympic athelete.

The Amerikan Empire is grotesquely predictable, like Stalinist Russia.

[TacticalPeek]

14. Do you now, or have you ever opposed the election of George W. Bush?

By act, word or thought?