so you're to blame. Well, I forgive you. And this: [I] decided I'm too lazy for it.

I think you must be my long-lost brother (and coming from a family of seven sisters that's no small thing).

"If these things are not the exercise of raw power in your thinking... good Christ, man, what is?" - pda

You're only half way there.

Yes, they are an exercise of power. How did they empower Bush, personally? Why would he choose this particular way to exercise power?

Are you suggesting that it is just a "power trip"? Bush wants to surveil just for the sake of surveilling?

Yes there are personalities like that in the world. They don't tend to get senior members of congress to agree with their plans.

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.

There apparently is; you spotted the six links. ;-)

On a more serious note, you might see a space or a break in the underlining that should indicate multiple links. I understand that this isn't obvious as first glance, and thus try to put in connector words, commas, or such (which will clearly show the break in the link through font colour) when possible, when I'm trying to put in multiple links in a single sentence on my blog or in comments. But that's just a courtesy.

Cheers,

Obama and company need to act as if they are not going to investigate anything. They can change their tune on Jan 21, but for now they need to act as if the things done by Bush is water under the bridge. Bush can give pardons to anyone he wants, and naming names at this point is extremely counterproductive.

Bush will pardon himself and everyone else, of course, but Obama shouldn't give him an excuse.

BTW, can Obama just ignore pardons and grab people anyway? Can he attach a signing statement to the pardons after the fact? The executive branch seems to be able to ignore he law and the constitution, so why not in this case?

This "protect us" stuff is simply the language tyrants use to either gain, or add to their, power.

-- Timothy3

I completely agree with this. I think Bush's every move was made to amass more power. One need simply look at his office's theories of executive power in "time of war" to understand his motives.

On the other hand, I don't care what his motives were. If he committed a crime, he committed a crime. It should be investigated. There are defenses to crimes, of course - insanity, sef-defense, etc. But, whether those are valid should be left to the judicial process and finders of fact. Public opinion about whether a crime was acceptable because it was for the "good of the nation" is completely irrelevant.

If NOB's point is that the public opinion angle is why the Democrats chose not to impeach, it's not a bad point. But, if to say that Bush shouldn't have been impeached because his motives were pure (and I don't know if that's NOB's point or not), is both absurd and frightening.

On the other hand, if an investigation offering immunity in exchange for full disclosure from the people who would otherwise take the rap actually exposed the principals' roles in detail, I'd take that deal.

On the other hand is right... what assumptions are you basing this deal on? The behavior of the Congress? Obama? Is this "deal" the only alternative?

Your deal sounds like wishful thinking at best.

The egotist wants to stand in front of everyone and receive their praise. The stuff we're talking about was to occur in the dark.

Allow me to disagree with your disagreement. The nature of power, to my way of thinking, doesn't require that it be made public. A lot of the stuff (to put it politely) that Kissinger and others did, by way of exercising it, wasn't meant to be public. For example, the Watergate break-in was never intended to see the light of day, had things worked out the way Nixon hoped. Let's assume no one ever knew about it; still, Nixon would have had the pleasure of basking in that expression of power. That is ego.

are/can be every bit as guilty under the law as blue collar ones.

This is class-warfare of elitists thinking themselves better equipped to make laws/run countries.

What they really want to do is to legalize thier illegal activities til a democracy is hijacked into a corporate fascist regime.

Tell your mom about Chamberlain and "peace at any price".

Tell her how the german people looked the other way and the whole nation was held responsible for what followed (not just the military or party officials ...... the german people in toto).

How did they empower Bush, personally? Why would he choose this particular way to exercise power?

To... to protect us? Oh my god, you're right!

Seriously, man, is this all you've got? You're trying to tell me that, unless it empowers Bush personally - like in some Caligula-esque way or something - that an exercise of such massive power isn't power?

You disappoint me.

The egotist wants to stand in front of everyone and receive their praise. The stuff we're talking about was to occur in the dark.

-- NotOrbitBoy

"I'm the decider."--GWB

"Bring'em on!"--GWB

"Be a lot easier for a dictator...so long as I'm the dictator, hehe, hehe."--GWB

The actions of pedophiles and rapists of all sorts are supposed to "occur in the dark" also. But that doesn't change the equation of the sickness of the perpetrator or the power they feel in the perpetration.

If Bush and company is pardoned, the people should head to washington and storm the bastille.

We have a financial crisis, two wars and a president-elect who won on a strategy of post-partisan politics. We all know Bush was small-minded and quite possibly a criminal, and we certainly should get the facts out (behind closed doors) so this does not happen again. But a political witch hunt for bureaucrats would send Obama home after four years. The entire affair would become immensely political and discredit Obama's whole appeal to the MIDDLE MAJORITY. No self respecting Democrat wants to see America's dirty laundry aired after we have just won back a big dose of good will from our international friends. We have bigger fish to fry than this. Thank God you fringer's only have a big media presence and very little presence in the actual electorate. When will you crybabies learn - if we lost your (the supposed left base) vote we would still win elections, but if we lose the middle we are sunk. The "mythical middle" (as DailyKos refers to us) is mythical only in it's very real massive proportions.