On March 7, 2006, David Lindorff wrote this in an article at Counterpunch. He was totally wrong on this, and Howard Dean emailed him to please correct it. Dean’s answer below. Lindorff implies it makes him get noticed as a journalist.
“While researching our book on impeachment (The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing George W. Bush from Office, St. Martin’s Press, due out in late April), my co-author Barbara Olshanshky and I have found that members of Congress-even firebrands like Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Cynthia McKinney (D-GA)-have been strong-armed behind the scenes by the Democratic National Committee not to introduce an impeachment bill in the House. Rep. John Conyers, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, where such a bill would be considered, has submitted three bills that relate to impeachment-a proposal for a special committee to investigate possible impeachable crimes by the administration and bills to censure both the president and the vice president for refusing to answer questions from Congress on impeachment-related issues–but that’s as far as the Democratic congressional leadership is willing to go.”
Then he gets a letter from Howard Dean, and he gives a snip of it in this article, also at Counterpunch. He lost me at “it’s nice to be noticed as a columnist.”
Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch: DNC No Foe of Impeachment Drive
I got an personal email from Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean today. On a Sunday morning, the DNC chief wrote me to take issue with what I wrote on March 7 in this space. I said that pressure from Democratic party leaders was the reason not one member of the House has filed a bill of impeachment against our president for trashing the U.S. Constitution.
The article clearly hit a nerve.
“The DNC is not in the business of telling Congress to go easy on this President,” Dean wrote. “I’d be grateful if you could correct the report.”
It’s nice to be noticed as a columnist, and I will clarify my point. I agree with Dean that the DNC as an organization is not telling Congress anything.
Good for Howard for standing up for himself. Too bad he must fight the left and the right to do his job. We have a long way to go in this battle for the party’s soul. Not everyone will get everything they want. Life is just not that way. Honesty is always the best policy. You got noticed, Mr. Lindorff, because you told an untruth, not because you did a good job on that particular article.
