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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Call it a write off.
I don't know where I first saw that quote or who originated it, but it seems to me that if this nation has any calling or purpose beyond simply protecting and encouraging the economic activity of its citizens, promoting justice has to be a serious candidate. The whole theme of the brighter half of our history has been one of promoting an ever-widening circle of justice and empowerment: racial minorities, women, and, soon, those with alternative sexual proclivities. An essential feature of justice is accountability and consequences. Letting Nazis off the hook at the end of World War II would not have sent a proper message to the rest of humanity as to what is right and acceptable. Likewise, pardoning the higher officers of the Bush Administration for their deliberate violations of the Constitution, their oaths of office, and international law will not, in the long run, serve either justice or any long range positive goals of our nation or the world.
Obama has already displyed an great capacity to address more than one thing at a time. An investigation would only be distracting to the extent that the media is incapable of that same capacity.
That said, perhaps the most damaging thing that the Obama administration could do is to bleed out parts and pieces of various evidence, as they find them buried in the Bush archives. In the court of public opinion, guilt is often the presumption, and the right would be too busy scrambling to defend than to make trouble.
We are familiar with Republican-style bipartisaship. Now the Republicans need to get a little more familiar with it.
this should surprise no one.
They should start a new party.....Democans or Republicrats?
Obama realizes that showing his hand while Bush is still in office would be counterproductive and he's playing innocent to allay Bush's fears and will start talking about investigation once he's in office and has access to the evidence.
It's our only hope for justice.
tyrants -- our Leaders have so many Good and Important Things to do..."
Consider a ball rolling down hill and then up the next hill. It does not make it to the top of next one, but stops for an instant before rolling back. That instantaneous pause is the time that a benevolent dictatorship lasts, and the roll back down is where the country is headed.
Only the people can force the rule of law. Let those elected know what they must do.
Post-partisan hominy v. thee rule of law.
The prevailing mood is blue melancholy.
Hear= X. A consensus is what? Tin-Pots.
Mental non-human misfits eat Tin-Cans.
sorry. I go out in a foggy morning state.
Punishing the old administration for its "crimes", which could include for example, any and all of the crackpot accusations against the Clinton administration, is not going to work. Things must be set up to prevent crimes in the first place, or to take action against them immediately.
Glenn should try to think of ways to protect the Constitution and the rule of law without resorting to extremist partisanship.
I wished the democrats had impeached Bush, but they lacked the spine to do so.
I wouldn't mind a true criminal proceeding, but I don't think the democrats have the spine for that, either.
A question that should be asked is; why do the democrats lack spine? . . . I suspect guilt by association.
If the democrats do anything, it will probably structured whereby the opposition cannot present their case, the opposition will not be given access to the "evidence", ... it will be a show "trial", not really a trial at all.
In other words, it will be designed to serve the needs of the democrats, not of our country.
When Clinton got into office and decided not to prosecute the wrongdoings of the Bush White House, it taught the Republicans that they could get away with anything. That has a lot to do with the situation we are in now, with the whole Executive Branch running roughshod over our rights and over the law, and then saying "We dare you to prosecute us. That would be partisan".
Bush II did not have to investigate or prosecute Clinton's wrongdoings. The Republicans had just spent 8 years doing that. Remember the whole Whitewater thing and the impeachment? Even after that, when the Clintons left the White House, all those stories about how they took stuff and messed up the computers? Those stories that turned out to be false and just made up by the Bushies?
Malfeasance by any White House should be prosecuted by the subsequent one, if for not other reason than a sign that no one is above the law, even, or especially, a President.
Glenn should try to think of ways to protect the Constitution and the rule of law without resorting to extremist partisanship.-- skeptonomist
Investigating crimes that are in the books as felonies, and then prosecuting them is "extremist partisanship"? Could you explain that, please?
Is there a way to delineate multiple linkys embedded in one blue-highlighted phrase?
This para. contains 6 linkys (and a typo) but it only looks like 4.
Here, X = "eavesdropping on Americans with no warrants," and "tortuing detainees," and "destroying evidence relating to investigations," and "interfering in criminal prosecutions for political purposes." Those are crimes -- felonies -- in every sense of the word, not policy differences. And they are all actions in which Bush officials have clearly engaged.
As has been mentioned elsewhere, the political establishment is a political party unto itself; a ruling class that allows the people to select one of its members to be president. To talk of "partisan" in reference to them is absurd - they are all one group.
Their desire that investigations not be performed has nothing to do with "partisan issues"; they do not want to be investigated for their own part in these crimes, either as enabler or participant.
So I guess the big lesson to be learned from this administration is to do everything you can to delay an investigation. Wait everything out by any means necessary (legal or illegal). Once the new administration comes into power, they won't bother to follow up.
Why should a President ever answer to Congress if they know they don't have to? Just push back on answering questions as long as you can, ignore requests through the Freedom of Information Act, and once you get subpoenaed, claim executive privilege. That logic is crazy, but according to guys like Litt, it works.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
