I have not heard directly from Senator Evan Bayh‘s office about the issue of his having co-chaired with John McCain and Joseph Lieberman the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
But I just ran across this admission by Senator Bayh that he has no recollection of the neoconservative operation to which his name was attached. He does admit that it was attached though — just not sure how it got there.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Sen. Bayh now says he regrets his early support of the Iraq war and has no recollection of the committee. “I don’t remember any meetings, any conversations, any anything,” Sen. Bayh said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Obviously my name was linked to it, but other than that there’s nothing that can be said.”
Senators are busy — and they get signed up for all sorts of stuff by staffers who operate in their bosses’ names. That’s just the way the system works.
But this is the first time I’ve seen a US Senator who has probably done many things by name that he has no direct recollection of disown an act by declaring ignorance of it.
I take Senator Bayh at his word that he may not recall this high profile committee that garnered lots of press attention and had McCain, Lieberman, Scheunemann, James Woolsey and others attached.
But then I think that the Senator owes us an explanation of how his staff signed him up for this — or how it happened. He should do an investigation of the action done in his name and then share the results publicly.
The “I don’t remember this” explanation doesn’t quite get over the big hump of how he could unknowingly become a co-helmsman of one of the most controversial NGOs tied to the clamor to invade Iraq.
— Steve Clemons
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