John Conyers and Rob Kall at the DC Antiwar Protest
photo by John Mihalich
"There are a lot of progressives on our site who were angry, the day after the November election," I tell him. (You know who you are .)
He smiles and says, "The day after... that soon? The new congress wasn't even sworn in until January."
"Yep, the day after," I reply, adding, "They've been angry that impeachment is off the table."
He pauses, purses his lips, then nods his head, agreeing, saying, "They have lots of good reasons to be angry. But, you know, the presidential race is coming, in 2008.. and it's already 2007. If you know a way to take care of all the domestic issues, to successfully prepare to take the whitehouse, to investigate and prosecute and impeach-- tell me..."
I replied, "Me, personally, I'm not worried about impeachment. I'm trusting you to pursue investigations that will turn up lots of dirt... You are starting them, aren't you?"
Congressman Conyers replies that they've already set the gears in motion and they will be under way soon, and that he hopes to see new revelations uncovered, after years of coverups.
Then I continue, "I'm not worried about impeachment because I think that once your hearings start, you'll turn up stuff that will send the Republicans to the Whitehouse demanding that Bush and Cheney leave."
He smiles, nods again and says, "That's been done before, you know. They did that with Nixon."
Then he introduces me to his communications direction. I introduce myself as the publisher of OpEdNews.com. He replies that he knows us well-- that they check google alerts and we show up regularly.
That is sweet news, confirming a suspicion I've had. And I'm guessing that if John Conyer's staff checks google alerts, that all the congressional staffs do it. That means that we in the progressive media, at least those spidered by google news-- OpEdNEws, Buzzflash, Rawstory, truthout, counterpunch, tompaine, huffingtonpost (as compared to blogs and community blog sites, which are not spidered) are reaching the decision makers in congress. (not that the blogs are not also reaching them, but not through the google alerts.
But back to John Conyers and our impeachment conversation... In our conversation, Congressman Conyers held to his position on not pursuing impeachment directly. But, as far as I'm concerned, Conyers is doing the best thing he can do to stop Bush and Cheney and get rid of them. All good things come in time. He's proceeding to hold hearings with the hopes of digging up what it takes to take things to the next level. What's there to complain about?
