I keep occasionally seeing references to how "badly" this supposedly turned out for the Republicans. It boggles my mind that anybody could come to that conclusion.

We have been listening to Democratic powerbrokers excuse inaction in the face of Bush's lawlessness by suggesting it would be "poor form" to impeach "consecutive presidents", or that they should hesitate to impeach Bush because it might be called "retribution" for the unsuccessful effort to hound and impeach Clinton, or that the Clinton experience shows that impeachment should be reserved for "serious wrongdoing" as if Bush's evisceration of the Constitution was somehow equivalent to the substance of the charges against Clinton.

The very outrageousness of the Clinton soap opera has itself been accepted as a reason to excuse anything Bush has done. And somebody is supposed to base a decision not to impeach Bush on the fact that Clinton's impeachment was contrived and stunk of witch-hunting, because we wouldn't want the Republicans to suggest the same of an attempt to vindicate the Constitition against Bush's attacks?

The sooner we can all get around to re-writing that "judgment of history", the better. Of course, my bet is we're now 30 days away from that moment, as the Obama presidency will be the target of "serious" impeachment demands about 15 minutes after it starts, and there will be precious little time spent agonizing over whether it would be "untoward" to pursue impeachment for any reason whatsoever. Any bets how soon after January 20 Hannity or Limbaugh will intone about what an imperative constitutional obligation Congress has to impeach the President when there is any hint of wrongdoing? Probably over the Blago CoverUp Scandal, such as it might possibly maybe perhaps be, what's he maybe hiding, right?

Yep. Anybody who believes the Dick Cheney spoke on Fox News and somehow "inadvertently let slip" any sort of comment pertaining to the legitimacy of Bush's exercises of claimed power or on an issue of argued illegality is smoking dope. This is the same Dick Cheney who advocated going on Meet the Press because they could "control the message" because Russert was there; is Fox News given less thought as a forum for this stuff?

Yes, this is all about whether or not they will try the "blanket pardon" route or whether, as was surmised by some in the msm not all that long ago (also no doubt as a planted story line), they will forego pardons in furtherance of a strategy that says "we had legal opinions behind us, we did nothing wrong, there's nothing to pardon" whereas taking a pardon route might fuel suggestions they know they broke the law and, hence, might subject them to additional risk under international law (since the pardon power reaches only offenses against the United States which are not the subject of impeachment). I say "might" because that's how it will undoubtedly be spun, even though "would" is the legally right word because acceptance of a pardon does, as I understand it, constitute an admission of guilt. Right about now, and especially with the Senate Armed Services Committee report, they might be wanting to test the waters on public response to those presumptions.

When Leahy commented on the Maddow show about the Senate report and Cheney's earlier comments about waterboarding, he did note that the professed reliance on "legal opinions" (meaning the then-secret Yoo memos) was futile because that isn't a defense to breaking the law. His lips to God's ears, as Muskasey already has signed off on a contrary (and fatuous) acceptance of that argument on behalf of the DOJ. So now Cheney wants to hit the friendly Fox forum and try to gin up a week's worth of supportive commentary on the "yeah, but they were all baaaad" line that is about all they've got left.

Don't let these bastards get away with this. Go get 'em, Glenn!