Ralph Nader wrote last week that "mainstream political discourse" should include a discussion of impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Others have made similar observations. Economist Brad DeLong, for example, routinely ends many of his blog posts with "Impeach Bush. Impeach Cheney. Impeach them now." The so-called Downing Street memo is the latest occasion for their outrage.

The memo was written in 2002 as the Bush administration was building its case for attacking Iraq because of Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and support for terrorism. According to the memo, the head of the British foreign intelligence service reported on "his recent talks in Washington," informing the leaders of Tony Blair's foreign policy team that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed" around the policy of removing Saddam Hussein.

Continue Reading...