Cheney Impeachment Efforts Impeded – Media Complicity May Be Another Factor

On Friday, Florida Representative Robert Wexler initiated an effort to start Congressional hearings on the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Part of his effort is an op ed that was sent to various national papers. However, this statement has so far been rejected by all.

Daily Kos provided the following rational on the media rejections:

A major problem in challenging the Democratic leadership, however, has arisen in the form of a national media that simply ignores the growing national impeachment movement and the growing calls for impeachment within the Congress. Wexler reports that an opinion article penned by himself and two Judiciary Committee colleagues, Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), which was sent to a number of leading newspapers, including the Miami Herald, the Washington Post and the New York Times, was rejected for publication—an astonishing act of censorship for a document authored by three members of congress on an issue of such significance as impeachment of the vice president.

Asked why he thought leading publications had refused to publish the op-ed piece calling for an immediate start to impeachment hearings, Wexler says, “I think the mainstream media, at least thus far, have bought the notion that impeachment hearings are outside the bounds of what Congress ought to be doing.”

He adds that there may be a fear, on the part of corporate media executives and editors, and on the part of Democratic Party congressional leaders, of having been “complicit” in many of the administration’s constitutional crimes. “There may be some significant conflicts of interest,” he says, that could make them feel uncomfortable about the idea of impeachment hearings.

Since the major media are refusing to run the op ed from Wexler, Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), these Reps are asking for public support and have set up a web site to collect 55,000 signatures to present to their fellow Democrats.