FROM DETROIT NEWS

HEAD: Conyers blasted on Bush probe
SUB-HEAD: Critics slam the Detroit Democrat for not holding full-scale
impeachment hearings.

WASHINGTON -- On the eve of Rep. John Conyers much-anticipated examination
of the Bush presidency, impeachment advocates Thursday blasted the Detroit
Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee for not holding full-scale
impeachment hearings.

In a hint of the drama likely to unfold at today's daylong hearing on
"executive power and its constitutional limitations," anti-war activist
Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, painted Conyers as gutless for
agreeing to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's long-standing opposition to the
impeachment drive being pushed by the left wing of her Democratic Party.

"Somebody with integrity and courage would go ahead and do it because it's
the right thing to do," Sheehan said of Conyers at a news conference.

Conyers, echoing Pelosi, has said impeachment is off the table. Instead,
since he became chairman of the Judiciary Committee after Democrats regained
control of the Congress in the 2006 elections, Conyers has held numerous
oversight hearings into Bush practices.

Today's hearing is supposed to go one step further: airing possible
responses, from impeachment to censure by Congress to new legislation aimed
at limiting executive powers in future administrations.

Pelosi, Conyers and other Democratic leaders hope to bolster their majority
control of Congress and win the White House, and fear the impeachment drive
favored by the left wing of their party would backfire with voters.

But many in the activist base of the Democratic Party, which helped
Democrats win control of Congress, are furious because they believe Bush
intentionally misled the public about non-existent weapons of mass
destruction to launch the war in Iraq. Sheehan, for example, is trying to
unseat Pelosi from her San Francisco congressional seat.

Tom Fitton, head of the conservative Judicial Watch, says Conyers' decision
to hold the hearing confirms what Conyers critics like himself already
believed.

"The committee is diminished under his leadership," said Fitton. "It's
proved to be terribly partisan and nothing more than a stalking horse for
left wing activists."

But David Swanson, a leading impeachment advocate, sees it differently,
labeling the hearing as Conyers' latest "stalling plan" to run out the clock
before the elections without actually taking any action against the
president.

"You unilaterally disarm when you say, 'We won't impeach,'" Swanson said of
Conyers. "Then no one takes you seriously. You send requests and they are
laughed at."
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Well, of course they're laughed at; that's what people do when watching
clumsy clowns tripping over their big black shoes and falling on their red
noses (what a wonderful description of dem dim Dems in Congress).

Dionysus