An article in this week's edition of the
Metro Times, a Detroit-area alternative paper,
profiled John Conyers's role in getting the Downing Street Memo into the mainstream media.
The author, Curt Guyette, begins by saying:
As evidence exposing the dung heap of deception used by the Bush administration to mislead us into war continues to mount, no one in public life is doing more to seek accountability from the president than U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr.
Guyette then navigates familiar territory--at least to most Kossacks, explaining what the DSM was, what Conyers and others have done to make the media aware of it, and how some media have finally picked up on the story. He also quotes former anti-terrorism adviser and former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who said and wrote that the administration wanted to go to war with Iraq as early as September 12, 2001.
But what makes this article interesting is constitutional law professor Mark Tushnet's answer to the following question: If the revelations in the Downing Street Memo are true, and the administration lied its way into war, would removal of Bush from office be justified?
"On its face, that question is laughable--because the answer is so obviously yes," wrote Georgetown University constitutional law professor Mark Tushnet in a recent piece for Salon. "If we could ask any of the leaders of the movement to get the Constitution adopted, "Could a president be impeached for lying to the American people in order to get their support for a foreign war?" he would say, "Of course. That's exactly what the impeachment provision is all about."
Tushnet admits that impeaching George W. Bush is probably a non-starter, but that isn't stopping Conyers. He's trying to bring the president before the bar of history, and sooner rather than later:
"The historical truth has to come out," he says. "We shouldn't have to wait 15 or 20 years to come to these conclusions. We can't let them continue to do this. They are eviscerating the Constitution."