AUSTIN, Texas -- Of course I am above sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. So serious a servant of the public interest am I, I can fogey with the best: On my better days, I make David Broder look like Page Six.

I don't care what anyone smoked 20 years ago, I approve of those who boogie 'til they puke, and I don't care who anyone in politics is screwing in private, as long as they're not screwing the public.

On other hand, if you expect me to pass up a scandal involving poker, hookers and the Watergate building with crooked defense contractors and the No. 3 guy at the CIA, named Dusty Foggo (Dusty Foggo?! Be still my heart), you expect too much. Any journalist who claims Hookergate is not a legitimate scandal is dead -- has been for some time and needs to be unplugged. In addition to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hookergate is rife with public interest questions, misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, and many splendid moral points for the children. Recommended for Sunday school use, grades seven and above.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched an aggressive campaign to smear Congressman John Conyers.

Here's the background: It is accepted common wisdom among reporters, pundits, congressional staffers, and a majority of Americans that Bush and Cheney lied us into a war.  A new "smoking gun" piece of evidence makes the news on almost a weekly basis, and that has been going on for upwards of a year.  Yet there has been no investigation in either branch of Congress, no oversight, no checks, no balances, no accountability.

Congressman Conyers has introduced a bill (H Res 635) cosponsored by 36 other Congress Members to create a bipartisan committee to investigate the Bush administration's use or misuse of pre-war intelligence.  Should that investigation end up pointing in the same direction that an overwhelming mountain of publicly available evidence already points, then Bush and Cheney will easily merit impeachment.  An impeachment is only an indictment.  Following impeachment, the Senate holds a trial, and more evidence comes out.

Everybody had a good laugh at Bush's EPA claiming that the long feared destruction of wetlands had miraculously slowed. And who could blame them? The obvious layman response, otherwise known as the 'huh' factor, was more than on point. Environmentalists and laypeople alike have watched as runaway development and greed have gobbled up our wetland resources along with the last remaining open space in many of our urban and suburban areas.

Call us cynical, then, when the Bush administration trumpeted what could only be a godsent decline in the destruction of wetlands--a trend which has worried opponents of rampant development for a generation. Alas, the honeymoon was indeed shortlived: Bush junta officials managed to achieve the impossible by, well...lying about it. I know, I know--most of you will be shocked. But the administration managed to slow the decline of wetlands destruction with a simple sleight-of-hand: including man-made ponds and such gifts to nature as golf course water hazards in the wetland registry. Problem solved! If they include the puddle around my bird feeder, then we'll really be in good shape.

these guys, Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman, are tireless. month in and month out, they lay it on the line. in the 16 months since the 2nd stolen prez election, NOONE has risen to the occasion like these guys in giving me concrete numbers, facts and reports to butress my arguments to the nonbelievers about our hijacked democracy. they should have swept all the 'journalist awards' of the last 2 years.

thanks for the new ammo, guys, you are true heroes of investigative journalism.

There are now 37 Congress Members backing an investigation into grounds for impeachment related to the war. Rep. Hilda Solis has joined the list of cosponsors of House Resolution 635, introduced by Congressman John Conyers.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/635

This compares to 17 members backing Rep. Jim McGovern's bill to cut off funding for the war.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/end

Why are 20 more members on one of these bills than on the other?

Well, public disapproval of Bush is now higher than it was of Nixon when he resigned, and higher than public disapproval of the war.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/9872

But, more importantly, many citizens (myself included) no longer believe Congress has the power to affect anything other than by removing Bush and Cheney from office.