I just watched an odd Norah O'Donnell segment on MSNBC about 30 minutes ago. O'Donnell was interviewing Susan Page from the USA Today newspaper about the proposed Senate investigation of the CIA's interrogation techniques. O'Donnell started the interview by showing a CBS/NYT poll that supposedly showed that more Americans were against investigations than were for investigations. Yeah, just the opposite of the recent USA/Gallup poll. I didn't get the exact numbers but the poll showed something like 38% wanted investigations and 56% didn't.

What was also odd about this segment was the fact they were using a NYT poll when they had a guest from the USA Today who had just released their own poll (USA/Gallup) recently. When Page had an opportunity to speak she said that they should also in fairness mention the USA/Gallup poll. Duh! She then mangled her own poll results which once again gave viewers the impression that more people wanted just investigations over criminal investigations (just like Conason and Time did). What is with these people?

The main reason I'm posting this here is that I tried to find this CBS/NYT poll that Norah first mentioned and I can't find it anywhere. Has anyone seen this poll? If you have can you provide a link?

Thanks.

Looking back at the Bush years I realize that the lowest point for me came when I finally knew that the media and other political leaders were not going to step in and put a stop to the lawlessness. After each revelation of criminal behavior I kept thinking - ok now that we know this happened surely they will stop this madness. But as each successive outrage was revealed, no one in power did a thing. It was then that I knew that I was not living in the same country of my birth. Everything in this new country was upside down and very scary. I wondered how had it happened and where would it all end?

After witnessing all the unchallenged lawlessness I was truly frightened that the Bush administration was not going to leave office but would instead have a false flag attack where they would then declare martial law and our country would be lost forever. After reading the memos from yesterday that thought wasn't as far fetched as some would like to believe. I think we came perilously close to losing our entire way of life and until we face up to that fact the danger still lurks beneath the surface, no matter how many of the policies are reversed by Obama.

In addition to prosecuting our war criminals, I think we need to have some kind of Summit where a plan is put together to address how we can prevent authoritarian rule from making a comeback in the future. The Summit should include break out sessions where we brainstorm on how to make sure that our citizens are educated about these dangers - we figure out how to fight a media that refuses to hold our leaders accountable, etc. The Summit should include respected leaders from all walks of life who recognized the threat of the Bush administration at he time despite the media blackout. We could also make arrangements with cspan to broadcast the panel discussions as a starting point in educating the public (the ones who remained ignorant of the dangers). We also need to develop a back up plan in case we end up in the same place again despite our best efforts.

What happened in the last eight years is far too dangerous a precedent to just move on and do nothing.

why does it matter?

There will literally be no negative repercussions for this. It happened, it worked, and it'll happen again next time we have a President who wants to seize this power.

This is the country we live in. The Constitution can be ignored by political leaders with absolutely no punishment. We're going to have to get used to it, because it's going to continue happening.

-- TreeRol

Hey TreeRol, your "throw your hands in the air and surrender" advice sounds just like the BS we get from the MSM when they lecture us that we just don't understand political realities when we advocate following the rule of law and holding the Bush criminals accountable. You don't happen to work for the MSM do you?