I also happen to think that prosecuting those who trampled all over our civil rights is an "important thing."

The AIG Doctrine - Not sure you aimed that at me, Jebbie, but to be clear, I'm not arguing that investigations shouldn't be done, or that they won't be done, only that the people who would be involved in authorizing/initiating/conducting them are some of the very same people who would have an incentive to suppress them. I suspect the best we will see is a few enterprising reporters (like Sy Hersh) with contacts in the administration will write up a storm of stuff. Although well sourced, I doubt we'll know the sources names. Hence it will amount to a series of allegations. I detest sounding this cynical, and if there are pressure points to which the citizenry can apply their shoulder, I'll jump right in. I'm just not optimistic those points exist, or are sensitive to pressure.

Thanks for the Booman link, sysprog. Yep. That's the one.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/blanket-pardons-by-digby-evidently.html

The only ones who care about this are human rights activists, civil liberties cranks and constitution lovers and nobody cares about them.

I'll be very happy to be wrong about this and if a commission on torture is formed I will be thrilled and vastly relieved. It just doesn't scan for me in this environment.

- - digby

Sparing Obama Criticism Isn't Doing Him (or Us) Any Favors

Obama is about to enter a hornet's nest of entrenched interests and ideology. Electing him was the easy part. Now the real work begins. (see sig)

In the Bush years, the special interests, lobbyists, pillagers, and crony corporations not only pitched their tents on the public commons, but with the help of the President's men and women, simply took possession of large hunks of it. That was called "privatization." Now, as Bush & Co. prepare to leave town in a cloud of catastrophe, the feeding frenzy at the public trough only seems to grow.

It's a natural reaction -- and certainly a commonplace media reaction at the moment -- to want to give Barack Obama a "chance." Back off those critical comments, people now say. Fair's fair. Give the President-elect a little "breathing space." After all, the election is barely over, he's not even in office, he hasn't had his first 100 days, and already the criticism has begun.

But those who say this don't understand Washington -- or, in the case of various media figures and pundits, perhaps understand it all too well.

Political Washington is a conspiracy -- in the original sense of the word: "to breathe the same air." In that sense, there is no air in Washington that isn't stale enough to choke a president. Send Obama there alone, give him that "breathing space," don't start demanding the quick ending of wars or anything else, and you're not doing him, or the American people, any favors. Quite the opposite, you're consigning him to suffocation.

Leave Obama to them and he'll break your heart. If you do, then blame yourself, not him; but better than blaming anyone, pitch your own tent on the public commons and make some noise. Let him know that Washington's isn't the only consensus around, that Americans really do want our troops to come home, that we actually are looking for "change we can believe in," which would include a less weaponized, less imperial American world, based on a reinvigorated idea of defense, not aggression, and on the Constitution, not leftover Rumsfeld rules or a bogus Global War on Terror.

http://www.alternet.org/story/106828/sparing_obama_criticism_isn%27t_doing_him_(or_us)_any_favors/?page=entire

In Litt's defense, on his page it does say:

"Practice Focus

White Collar Criminal Defense"

Truth in Advertising.

that the United States is in the process of transforming itself from a republic into an oligarchy. I've also mentioned before that you can read about the process and its consequences in A History of Venice by John J. Norris.

Having said that, you should spread your ire further. Consider as well all the examples of laws that exempt members of Congress from compliance that is required of all us lesser persons. The gold plated retirement system that exempts congressmen from the social security system is one of the lesser examples. Anything that treats the one group differently than everybody else becomes an acid corroding the body politic. You are merely highlighting a current, blatant example.

But EVERYBODY else thought they were SMARTER than I was.

Now Obama will run things like a benevolent dicktatership.

Thanks YET AGAIN, America!

Common Sense, Thomas Paine famously declared that "so far as we approve of monarchy, the law is King."

Well, that's done and over now, isn't it...

People really ARE hell.

"One other point worth making: the very same Robert Litt urging that Bush officials not be investigated or prosecuted spent much of his career as a federal prosecutor, aggressively prosecuting and imprisoning all sorts of ordinary Americans. ...and used mandatory sentencing guidelines to ensure harsher sentences for common criminals."

That's the crux of it for me, and the most infuriating. However, I don't think there is anyone who reads this blog regularly that expected the incoming administration to actually investigate the Bush administration or seek prosecution of crimes.

On a last note, I would suggest that there is more here than a simple buckling of the system. In my experience, a large number of prosecutors go on to become defense attorneys after they've spent enough time in the belly of the beast learning the ins and outs of how the justice system succeeds in putting poor people in jail and consistently fails to put rich people in jail. They then become rich helping rich people game the system.

Hello, Mr. Greenwald:

Ignoring for the moment your second update (which may, in fact, end up to be the most revealing part of your post)...

I think that Mr. Litt wasnt so much "announc[ing] that the rule of law does not apply to our highest political leaders". You (rightly, in my opinion) view these matters in terms of their lawfulness. I dont believe that framework ever occurred to Mr. Litt. I think he (and others such as Mr. Broder) view these matters as 100% political. They believe that these matters should not be investigated because such investigations would not be politically useful to the Democrats.

This perspective may come from the late 90s when the Republicans impeached President Clinton over an act that was, in fact, illegal, but generally fairly irrelevant. The impeachment of Clinton ended up doing little if any good for anyone - Republicans, Democrats, average Americans, etc.

Thus, their viewpoint is that investigations are annoyances to be avoided. However, as you well know, it is a preposterous mistake to equate the truly minor and inconsequential lawbreaking of Pres. Clinton's lying under oath about Monica Lewinsky to the enormously grave lawbreaking that has taken place under our current president. There are real consequences to Pres. Bush's misdeeds that go well beyond any political maneuvering.

I wish more people in the Beltway could understand this.