Sen. John Kerry (The Dick Cavett Show) has called on the Senate Intelligence Committee "to assess how policy makers used the intelligence they received" in the buildup to the Iraq war. Friday, Kerry released his letter to committee Chairman Sen. Pat Roberts (Not The 700 Club), co-signed by nine Senators.
Kerry's said the Downing Street Memo raises "troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers."
"For the sake of our democracy and our future national security," Kerry wrote, "the public must know whether such warnings [about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction] were driven by facts and responsible intelligence, or by political calculation."
Kerry's letter complicated Day 10 of "Truth Behind the Gates" for a team of White House staffers. They have been reviewing the letter from Rep. John Conyers Jr. signed by over 100 House members and 553,000 Americans seeking answers from the President.
President Bush was frustrated during his radio address Saturday morning. The Conyers letter and the stacks of paper with co-signers names loomed like a white elephant in the Oval Office.
Karl Rove stopped by to see Scott McClellan and the team reviewing the letter. They are charged with rooting out duplicate names, collecting library records, then coordinating with the Vice President and Halliburton.
"Thanks for having my back this week, Scottie," said Rove. "You used some form of the word 'philosophy' at least 20 times. I thought you had a degree in it!"
"I'm sorry I couldn't stop the guy who turned the word 'bloviate' into 'Roviate.'"
"Don't sweat it. Just remember, I'm the only guy around here who gets paid to doctor the philospohy."
Rove and McClellan looked at each other for a moment, then broke out in the fake laughter that was recently added to the playbook. Everybody at the White House is still getting used to flexing their funny as President Bush showed on Friday:
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. Declining public support for the mission in Iraq and the lack of progress on some of your domestic priorities has prompted suggestions that you're in something of a second term slump. Do you worry --
PRESIDENT BUSH: A quagmire, perhaps. (Laughter.)
The President's comic timing was off. The bit would have been much funnier if Bush was more decisive:
QUESTION: Declining public support for the mission in Iraq and the lack of progress...
Article comments
1 - pheephee
What a great post!
2 - John Bambenek
How is that From 180 going for John Kerry?