Downing St paving the way to impeachment?

Quote of the day is John Bonifaz at yesterday's hearings on the Downing Street Minutes.

"The United States House of Representatives has a constitutional duty to investigate fully and comprehensively the evidence revealed by the Downing Street minutes and other related evidence, and to determine whether there are sufficient grounds to impeach George W. Bush, the President of the United States."

The Globe and Mail goes on to say, in a rather snarky article,

Not since the impeachment blotted out all else in former president Bill Clinton's second term, has the term been bandied about on Capitol Hill.

Mr. Conyers's pseudo-hearing yesterday was a bit of a sham. The majority Republicans rejected his call for formal hearings into the Downing Street memo. Still, with more than a dozen of his fellow Democrats crammed into a small, flag-bedecked room, an effort was made to give the meeting the appearance of a hearing. In spite of the cameras and microphones and congressional niceties, it was, in fact, devoid of legality and had no powers of subpoena.

The article fails to mention that 105 121 Congress members signed the petition and it was noted frequently by those members able to attend the hearing, that there was an unprecedented 20 11 votes on important bills suddenly scheduled for the same time frame, by those same majority Republicans.

The Orange County Register also covered the hearings and reports on the White House response.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan rebuffed the inquiry, saying Conyers "voted against the war in the first place and is simply trying to rehash old debates that have already been addressed."

But this debate is not about war, it's about veracity. It's about transparency in governance. It's about trust. To paraphrase the proponents of the excesses in the Patriot Act, "If Bush has got nothing to hide, then let him produce the official US minutes that disprove the facts in the Downing Street Documents.

Video of the Conyers' hearing is available here at Information Clearing House.