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Too True! Specter and Cornyn Oppose Truth Commission

GOP senators Arlen Specter and John Cornyn are leaving no doubt where they stand on Senate Judiciary chair Pat Leahy's proposal to create a Truth Commission to look into the Bush administration's war on terror policies.

They oppose it.

In a press release the pair sent out, Specter said:

When this idea of the so-called 'truth commission' first surfaced I said it was unnecessary because you had a change of administration, you could walk in the front door, ask for directions to the relevant filing cabinet, go in and open the drawer and find out anything you wanted to know. Well that's been done. And it's being done to a greater extent. You had some rather startling disclosures with the publicity in recent days about the unusual, to put it mildly, legal opinions which were issued to justify executive action.

Cornyn added:

I oppose the creation of a so-called 'truth commission' because it is a redundant and politically divisive exercise that would distract the Executive, Congress, and the American people at a time when we should be focused on reinvigorating our economy and winning the war on terror. This roving, unaccountable inquisition into each and every grievance with a Bush Administration policy is a backward-looking proposition that is directly at odds with President Obama's stated goals of unity and moving forward. Now is not the time for government to waste more of taxpayers' money by outsourcing a core Congressional responsibility.

It appears these senators can't handle the truth.


7 Comments

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no suprise here with these bottom feeders of a facists point of view!

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Tell me again, how much did Ken Starr spend on the investigation of Clinton. Seems I remember a number of around $40 million. Glad to see hypocrisy still reigns supreme in the GOP!

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At the very least let's get at the truth about the OLC memos that enabled rationalizations that led to the evisceration of constitutional protections and thus to crimes at home and to rendition, detention and torture to human persons, denied basic humane treatment, which you would not do to an animal.

At the same time as the OLC memos and how they came about are pursued, then let's empower a special prosecutor or a special counsel to dig into everything - quietly in the background - bringing indictments as they may be warranted.

There is a long proposal for this in comment #136 by Mary at emptywheel in this thread today:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/04/senate-judiciary-hearing-on-truth-commission-liveblog/

I highly endorse Mary's suggestion. (and if I have misrepresented any aspect of it in my own remarks above, IANAL and I defer to Mary's own comments)

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"... you could walk in the front door, ask for directions to the relevant filing cabinet, go in and open the drawer and find out anything you wanted to know."

Yeah, as long as you can be sure the documents haven't already been shredded.

Tell me again how many videotapes of "interrogation" the CIA destroyed? How can we find out what we want to know about those interrogations, Arlen?

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If you're dying of cancer, and your frigg'n old to boot, you have NO SAY. Let's fire Spectacle in 2010, if God doesn't do it for us.

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If Cronyn is so certain of the American people, he should carry his case to them. But, he'd lose, and he knows it.

As to Specter, his remark is his same ole butterfly dance - always appearing to cooperate, but behind the scenes he runs interference.

You don't have to be a blind conservative not to see it, just an ignorant one to deny it.

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Actually this makes sense to me. After all, does anyone out there believe ANYONE in Washington has an inkling of what the TRUTH really looks like? I believe it has been missing in action for so long, none of those mobsters would recognize it if it was staring them in the face...

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