John Conyers and Deep Throat

By Margaret Kimberley, The Black Commentator

Deep Throat was the anonymous source who helped Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein break the Watergate story. For the past 30 years the identity and in some cases the very existence of Deep Throat has been called into question until Mark Felt recently revealed himself to be the mystery man.

There have been many opportunities for eager reporters to bring down the current White House occupant, but no one in the corporate media seems to want the job. At the end of 2000 Greg Palast, an American reporter working for the British press, revealed that Florida Governor Jeb Bush had removed thousands of eligible voters, most of them black, from the voter registration rolls, thereby stealing the state for his brother George W.

At that time the media told us about hanging chads and butterfly ballots, but nothing about the true theft of Florida and the presidency. When Palast handed the story to CBS, the Washington Post and others, he was told that Jeb denied everything. In the current political climate a denial from a subject, a powerful subject that is, means the end of any reporting.

Bob Woodward is now managing editor at the Washington Post. While he cut his teeth on the dethronement of a criminal presidency, he is now in bed with another criminal presidency. Woodward wrote Bush at War with the full cooperation of the Bush White House. Trusted by Bush, Cheney, Rove and company, Woodward now perfectly fits the definition of a compromised journalist.

There is plenty of evidence to bring articles of impeachment against this president. One member of Congress is trying to bring attention to information that stares the corporate media in the face but is rarely if ever acknowledged.

Thanks once again to the British media we have proof of what any thinking person already knew. The Bush administration lied about the need to go to war against and occupy Iraq. There was no nuclear capability, and no WMDs either. The evidence purporting to show that they did exist were all fabricated.

An internal memo from Tony Blair�s government said the following about the Bush administration argument in favor of war with Iraq: Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

Unlike in the early 1970s, the Washington Post didn�t even have to do any work on this story. All the Post had to do was quote other newspapers. They finally did, but very late and with very little fanfare. The Post reported the story weeks after the Times of London did, and to add insult to injury placed it on page A18. The Post�s own readers angrily emailed their ombudsman and demanded that their newspaper do its job, only to be scolded for daring to question that august publication.

Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan isn�t holding his breath waiting for the press to tell this story. He is asking at least 100,000 Americans to sign a letter demanding answers to questions on the Downing Street memo.

John Conyers sat on the House Judiciary committee that was on the verge of impeaching Richard Nixon. Conyers must be feeling a strange case of d�j� vu. He has seen a corrupt White House before, but in 1974 America still had a functioning press and Democrats were the majority party in the House of Representatives.

Thanks to Democratic party incompetence, that hasn�t been the case since 1994. Conyers and his colleagues have evidence of numerous impeachable offenses against George W. Bush, but they are unable to make themselves heard when their leaders won�t buck the system and the media focus on missing person cases and celebrity criminal trials.

Conyers is doing his job as a member of Congress, the media�s job as an investigative force, and the Democratic party�s job in opposing the Republicans. Not content to wear so many hats, John Conyers ignored the right wing attack on Felt, and planned to praise him with a House resolution.

�As one who was a first hand witness to Watergate, I can only state humbly that Mr. Felt helped bring our country back from the brink of a constitutional crisis and an out-of-control White House.�

He also knows that today�s press is unprepared to do its job vis a vis the Bush administration. "Today it is unclear who will step up to the plate to expose the wrongdoing of the current administration."

Conyers knows that if we want this job done right we will have to do it ourselves. There is no �they� to help us. No political party, and no newspaper will come to our aid. Progressives must sign Conyers� letter and step up to the plate to denounce the terrible crimes that have been committed against Iraq and against this country. Just don�t expect to read anything about it in your local newspaper.

Margaret Kimberley�s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BC. Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City. She can be reached via e-Mail at margaret.kimberley@blackcommentator.com. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/

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