Hinchey Scores One for Accountability!

Good news! Rep. Maurice Hinchey's bill requiring the white house to turn over all documents relating to those 16 SOTU words about yellowcake has passed committee! It will now go to a full vote in the house:

In rare fashion, the House Committee on International Relations today kept alive a resolution Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) authored that would require the White House to present Congress with all drafts and documents related to the crafting of President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Hinchey offered the resolution so that Congress could determine how the now infamous 16 words about Iraq seeking uranium from Africa, which turned out to be false, made it into that 2003 speech. Hinchey's measure would also require the White House to deliver to Congress all drafts and related documents surrounding an October 2002 speech that the president made in which he discussed a possible mushroom cloud from an Iraqi nuclear weapon, but did not mention an effort by Iraq to obtain uranium from Africa after the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said such claims were unproven.


...The Republican chairman of the committee, Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL), ordered a recorded vote on the measure in an attempt to kill it, but the measure tied 24-24.

...If the full Congress adopts the measure, the White House would have 14 days to present Congress with all of the requested documents.

So let's show Rep. Hinchey some support! And, of course, call your congress members - all of them.

And call the members of the International Relations committee, too, even if they're not your personal Senators. You can't help the fact that your Senators don't sit on that committee. Also, since it is the United StatesHouse of Representatives International Relations Committee, that is your, and every other American's, International Relations Committee. It's not like Illinois, for example, conducts extensive diplomatic affairs with foreign countries, now is it?