Evan Bayh: No Memory of Neocon Iraq Liberation Committee

[Douglas Carpenter]

this from Steve Clemons of Washington Notes

link: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/evan_bayh_no_me/

"I have not heard directly from Senator Evan Bayh's office about the issue of his having co-chaired with John McCain and Joseph Lieberman the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.

But I just ran across this admission by Senator Bayh that he has no recollection of the neoconservative operation to which his name was attached. He does admit that it was attached though -- just not sure how it got there.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Sen. Bayh now says he regrets his early support of the Iraq war and has no recollection of the committee. "I don't remember any meetings, any conversations, any anything," Sen. Bayh said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "Obviously my name was linked to it, but other than that there's nothing that can be said."
Senators are busy -- and they get signed up for all sorts of stuff by staffers who operate in their bosses' names. That's just the way the system works.

But this is the first time I've seen a US Senator who has probably done many things by name that he has no direct recollection of disown an act by declaring ignorance of it.

I take Senator Bayh at his word that he may not recall this high profile committee that garnered lots of press attention and had McCain, Lieberman, Scheunemann, James Woolsey and others attached.

But then I think that the Senator owes us an explanation of how his staff signed him up for this -- or how it happened. He should do an investigation of the action done in his name and then share the results publicly.

The "I don't remember this" explanation doesn't quite get over the big hump of how he could unknowingly become a co-helmsman of one of the most controversial NGOs tied to the clamor to invade Iraq."

-- Steve Clemons

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/evan_bayh_no_me/

[Muttocracy]

1. wiki says honorary co-chair?

:shrug:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Liberation_of_Iraq

[Alexander]

2. Birch Bayh was a progressive hero. Why is his son such a fuckass?

[Faygo Kid]

3. Fuhgeddaboutit.

Ain't happening.

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. Steven Clemons is convinced it IS going to happen and the decision will be finalized very soon

let's hope you are right and Mr. Clemons is wrong

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/evan_bayh_serve/

"As I reported the other day, Evan Bayh is the favored candidate to find himself on Barack Obama's ticket. Obama will probably finalize his decision today or tomorrow and then announce his decision as he comes out of his Hawaii vacation. The Obama campaign has offered to text message anyone who wants early word of the decision.

I don't think that such a selection is the end of the world but I do think that this pro-Iraq War, ( pro-Iran War? ) senator who sat on a board of directors with some of McCain's top neoconservative advisers needs as much "public vetting" as possible. I think that there are far better choices - a number of them.

Taylor Marsh lays out Evan Bayh's neocon relations best. She writes:

What's the Matter with Evan Bayh?

Besides the fact that he was the co-chair of the neocon pro-war Committee for the Liberation of Iraq? That his friends on that committee included Bill Kristol, Joe Lieberman, James Woolsey and Randy Scheunemann. Oh, and one more, John McCain. You can bet that's why he's in the running though. The old Democratic ghost of being afraid of not looking "strong on defense" has reared it's ugly head once again. With Obama being against the Iraq war, how could it not?


Randy Scheunemann, national security advisor to John McCain, is the guy who was simultaneously raking in big bucks from John McCain as well as the Government of Georgia while he was getting pledges of loyalty and mutual obligation and all that between Georgia's President Saakashvili and John McCain.

Barack Obama terminated his campaign relationship with a volunteer adviser for Muslim outreach, Mazen Asbahi, because the young lawyer had been on a board eight years ago for a period of just three weeks before resigning because of discomfort with allegations about another board member who was essentially the Chicago-based American Muslim community's version of Jeremiah Wright.

But Bayh did not resign from his neocon-dominated board and has made statements that he laments the possibility that Americans may be less pro-war, pro-conflict now because of their experience with the Iraq War.

How does that square with Obama's "politics of hope"??"

-- Steve Clemons

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2008/08/evan_bayh_serve/

[NorthCarolina]

4. No recollection? He'd fit perfectly into the Bush regime...err...I mean administration

eom

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. Here is the link to Sen. Obama's contact website to express your opinion

http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. /

[KoKo]

7. Kick.... and Obama supporters should be concerned because Bayh and Hillary are

reported to be very close. That should be enough to light a fire under Progressives who support Obama.

[Supersedeas]

8. do you smell a saboteur when an eye on 2012?

[KoKo]

10. I don't believe that Hillary would want to inherit after 12 years of Repug rule what

would be left of our country. So, that argument has never seemed logical to me. Sorry...

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. one kick for the next shift

[KoKo]

12. Kick...because Evan Bahy would be a dreadful VEEP no matte who likes him...

[Douglas Carpenter]

13. The direction of the country and the direction of the Party is more important

than all the strategy factors put together.

And? "would one want the V.P. candidate to actually BE President?" is the most important question of all.