I ran across Walsh's statement just yesterday and compared it to GHW Bush's attack on Walsh (comment here:)

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/16/treaties/permalink/9576d37ab3fb945e38afe47b62a0da89.html

It is literally a mirror image of today's situation, right down to Bush's claim of "criminalizing policy differences"--a claim you hear repeated verbatim these days, mostly by GOP hacks and lawless Democrats. For example:

He added: "These differences ["differences!"] should have been addressed in the political arena without the Damocles sword of criminality hanging over the heads of some of the combatants. The proper target is the President, not his subordinates; the proper forum is the voting booth, not the courtroom."

How many Democratic senators/house members have said something nearly identical to this regarding GW Bush and his major henchmen? I lose count.

Conason's article, discussed yesterday, seems even more pathetic in this light. I never thought I'd see Conason taking up defensive positions to protect GW and GHW Bush's high crimes and impeachable offenses, by saying it would be really hard to get a conviction in this political climate, and wishfully hoping that hey, some other country might serve the rule of law better than we do.

And so the Walsh echo goes unheard yet again, and Republican and Democrat alike try to find any kind of response to these "differences"--so long as it is not the appropriate and obvious one.

After all, Walsh's echo comes out of the past--and nowadays we're all about "looking forward".

Some columns or articles at Salon suffer from a lack of discussion--I agree with you. Juan Cole also writes here, but never engages with readers, or at least hasn't that I know of. It is unfortunate, but not all writers here follow a blog format--where author and reader interact.

AL has been a different blogger, imo, since Obama won the election. I reject his argument, on multiple grounds.

The article below, by LA Times, provides the wrong diagnosis. It wasn't the impeachment of Nixon that created the recurring nature of the nightmare--it was the pardon. Metaphorically, you can't bind up a dirty wound and expect it to heal. Dirty wounds don't heal--they fester. Clean the wound first--then bind it up.

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy.

As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate.

over 30 years later:

Our long national nightmare -- still going strong

The man who coined Ford's most hopeful phrase was among the first to learn that Cheney and Rumsfeld would use Watergate as an excuse to expand executive power.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-welch7jan07,0,4420063.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary