Adding Addington to the List of No-Shows
Panel Will Subpoena Assistant to Cheney
By Carrie Johnson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 7, 2008; A02
A House Judiciary panel voted yesterday to subpoena vice presidential aide David S. Addington as part of a broad inquiry into the Bush administration's treatment of detainees.
. . . Lawyers for the vice president have sought to limit the subjects about which Addington can be questioned, and committee sources say the scope of his testimony remains under negotiation. A former legal counsel to the vice president, Addington was a key player in formulating antiterrorism strategies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He has not previously discussed his views or his role in public.
. . . "Congress has the prerogative and duty to demand the truth from the executive," Nadler said. A spokesman for Nadler said the subpoena to Addington could be issued as early as today. Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president's office, said staff members would review it and "respond accordingly."
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In this feckless dance between those with no power and those with all the power, the operative phrase is that Cheney's office 'will review and respond accordingly.' Thus far, it's Congressional demand in the hundreds and Vice Presidential acquiescence zero. That's too good a batting-average to go down swinging at a congressional sinker, low and outside the plate, before that January 20th end of the season. Someone actually thinks a House Judiciary Panel chaired by some unknown Representative by the name of Nadler is going to prevail where Senator Pat Leahy has failed--and failed--and failed, until he is near--very, very close--to the record of "most-failed reasonable looking Senator in a position of supposed strength."
There is a reason for all this nonsense in a Democratic-controlled Congress, but no one dares ask the pertinent question of Nancy Pelosi or Hapless Harry Reid. Bend close and I will whisper it . . .
. . . the Democrats, including (but not limited to) Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Henry Waxman, John Conyers, Hapless Harry, Chuck Schumer and above-mentioned Patrick Leahy, are all in on this long and ugly list of impeachable offenses, some of them treasonable. They are co-conspirators. Harriet Meyers? forget it. Ashcroft, Rove, Rumsfeld, Taylor, Gonzales, Rice, and as long a list as you would care to append? Zero chance. Zero. Henry Waxman is too busy with Roger Clemens to bother with Sibel Edmonds, perhaps the most important witness of the past six years and one who is eager to testify. She begs to testify. Henry is too terrified by Pelosi to call her. Her testimony, like the Bush-Cheney impeachment is off the table and for much the same reason. It's very hard to play the game when the opposition holds all the trump-cards. The very sad likelihood of this unprecedented governmental bath in the same dirty water, is that no one will bring the guilty to trial, no one will be able to undo and remove us from the Iraq war. Perhaps more relevantly, no one will put a gun to the head of lobbyist control of our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. If those words sound somehow familiar, they are the last line of the Declaration of Independence, when men of honor pledged themselves, one to the other. But they were founders and now we have only finders; finders of blame, finders of excuse, finders of campaign funding, finders of jobs after so-called service, in the very bowels of the beast. The disgrace of Pelosi, Hapless Harry and the rest will not be mitigated one single whit by elections this November. We'll get a momentary surge of feel-good dopamines--the rush that s no more lasting than a cigarette or Hillary's knock-back of a shot and a beer. The rest is business as usual.
"Congress has the prerogative and duty to demand the truth from the executive,"