"Mike The deal? The deal is obvious -- any investigations will cause backlash that will destroy any hope of Obama having a successful presidency in any area. Whether the threat is real or not is a side issue. If enough of Obama's people believe it's true it will be true. You might say the deal is bogus. The deal is false. It's a bad deal. But that's the deal.-- CTO"

I'm not sure you know what the deal is. It has nothing to do with the "backlash" from Republicans more than it's protection for guilty/complicit Democrats. Barack proved that when he betrayed us with his FISA vote. When it became clear that he was the leader in the primaries, he was briefed on just how wet the beaks were of Nancy Pelosi, Steney Hoyer, Jane Harmon, Tom Daschle and Jay Rockefeller in their knowledge of the torture memos and the wire tapping/data mining programs. Why/how they became complicit is up for debate on whether it was incremental or blackmail files or both, but they are just as guilty as Bush et alia because they were either scared or stupid in not reporting such activity. Who knows, the telco's might have greased their palms to boot. If FISA hadn't have passed, you would be seeing a whole different scenario taking place right now and I seriously doubt Bush would have escaped impeachment even though he had so short of time left in office (impeachment can be done in a day and has been accomplished in three (President Johnson)) by using Writ of Mandamus (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23776http:// www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.phpaz=view_all&address=389x114232) and of course massive public outrage never hurts to influence (or at least it used to be).

Barack could have turned this on it's head, but that would have required extreme physical bravery and support from Democrats and he has neither. Hillary Clinton didn't vote for FISA, but that was just ammo she'll use in a future bid against him, but I can guarandamnedtee you that if she had been the clear leader in the primaries, she would have voted for it and Barack would have NOT. Nancy is huffing and puffing about investigations, but she knows in her limo-liberal heart they won't happen thus it gives her a nice shiney look in the eyes of the ignorant and naive. The rethugs are assholes and that's not going to change anytime soon, but it was the skuzzbucket DINO's that throttled Barack's initial agendas. Investigations would have beaten the repunks back into their dark holes and anything and everything would be passed with little resistance, but since Barack had his beak wetted by covering for Nancy (FISA), he's just getting pulled in deeper by the minute into previous corruption and fears he'll be judged just as dirty as they were. For his cowardice, I hope he is. The telco testimony would have literally changed the world.

I see the Nixon pardon as the death knell for accountability and the rule of law in the US... this set the stage for the subsequent dominoes...

My brother told me on the day that Ford pardoned Nixon that it was the worst disservice a President could possibly have performed (and he voted for Nixon -- this was back in the day when voters who were betrayed were crotchety enough to actually feel betrayed, instead of reflexively defending those who had betrayed them), and that Ford's act would inevitably have dire, insidious consequences. I always thought he was overstating the hell out of it. I sure don't think so anymore, especially given that Nixon's transgressions were trifling peccadillos compared with the executive abuses of the last eight years.

By the way, I like the irony of your domino metaphor.

This sentence from the NYT gave me pause:

The panel also recommended that the Justice Department examine criminal cases that grew out of the program to determine if prosecutors had complied with federal judicial requirements to disclose information to defendants.

So I looked more closely at the report, and found the recommendation in III.D. Discovery Issues (pp. 18-19). (I won't excerpt it here; it's easy enough to find.)

In other words, there may be people sitting in our prisons even now who were convicted of crimes, at least in part based on evidence gathered through the Presidential Fiat Program, but not disclosed to the accused as required by our laws; evidence gathered without even the fig leaf of a FISC warrant; evidence gathered in violation of our laws, and in violation of the rights of the accused.

In a sense, this isn't shocking - this is what we've been talking about all along when we talk about the Bush Administration's radical theories of executive power in pursuit of "national security". But in another sense, it is the ultimate "elephant in the room", which our political and media elites purposely ignore in the faux debate of real accountability versus looking-forward-not-backward-ism.

No matter how many times one sees it, it is still sickening to be confronted with the actual consequences of these policies.

"Call me a rube from the hinterlands but passing a law (the FISA Amendments Act of 2008) with no other purpose than to grant legality to an explicitly illegal activity seems (conversely anyway) to strike at the heart of the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws. Is there any precedent in US history of a sitting Congress passing a law with the sole aim of providing legal immunity for a high US official caught willfully breaking a law that was already on the books?"-- Mytwords

That's precisely the reason Ron Paul never voted for FISA and objected strenuously to the idea of it- ex post facto laws are illegal and unconstitutional (he's fond of that document I hear :)

"Stupid Question Why does POTUS*! have to "authorize" any investigation(s)? Couldn't Congress (theoretically) conduct an investigation into whatever the hey it wanted?"-- bamage

My stupid question is at what point is the U.N. going to be compelled to investigate these war crimes (torture and aggressive war) per the Convention on Torture Treaty and how do they enforce this treaty? I've asked Glenn (and others) and I never get an answer. I think there's blackmail files on everyone of importance/influence and someone that has been in Washington forever would know how to get that done (I'm looking at you, Dickless Cheney).