I think the Justice Department abuses are more important than the torture issues. But 1) Can we stop pretending this was just a few US Attorneys being fired. There were plenty of other politically motivated prosecutions and coverups. The Civil Rights division needs a thorough flushing. 2) Congress is the wrong place to do this. It should either be done quietly by the DOJ itself, or through a commission of lawyers, judges, and legal scholars who are not closely tied to either party.

Karl Rove had to be let go because of administration crushing power of the crimes he committed, and they've been working hard to try and have the whole thing pushed down the memory hole.

It has to be investigated, fully, and there has to be prosecutions, and severe penalties for those found guilty.
It was an outright attempt at disenfranchising millions of voters, in Democratic leaning states and districts, and it went far beyond the few US attorneys that were pushed out of their jobs.

Well, this could be a very careful act of political calculation. Obama, who was elected by the whole nation, has to sound conciliatory and forward-looking, and make a very sharp distinction between himself and the petty vindictiveness of Bush. Pelosi, on the other hand, represents a single district she has absolutely no chance of losing. She, along with other members of the House, can get their hands a bit dirtier on certain issues, since they don't have to rally the whole country, let alone run it. Obama has to use one type of rhetoric, while Pelosi can use another, but I doubt there will be much butting of heads on this issue. It's just a matter of who can say/do what while maintaining the support of the American public.

It should be noted that ths particular issue is clearly far from "the past." Aside from all the illegally hired Federalist Society wingnuts now borrowing into career DoJ positions, look at the jaw droppingly brazen attempts by Mary Beth Buchanan and Alice Martin, two of the most egregious of the politicized U.S. Attorneys, to remain in their posts past January 20. Although these are political appointments that almost invariably change as a matter of course with a new Administration, these two are refusing to submit the traditional letter of resignation. Their rationale? They are needed to conduct retrials of Democrats that juries refused to convict (in prosecutions that were so obviously politically motivated as to be almost comical). Buchanan and Martin are about as far from Patrick Fitgerald (who, in a break from tradition, almost certainly will be retained) as Kenneth Starr was from Archibald Cox. Should Obama actually summon the cojones to fire these two (and while a failure to do so should strike anyone familiar with these USAs' record as shocking, I would not put it past Mr. Post-partisan Kumbaya), expect the Rethugs to highlight this as not only a betrayal of Obama's campaign pledge of bipartisanship, but evidence of Democratic corruption. Utterly ridiculous, of course, but still prime fodder for our know nothing media.

Pelosi wants first and foremost to place as much distance between herself and Bush since she's been complicit all along. She's all for fingering Bush when her dirty hands can't be traced. Otherwise, she want national blinders on and all of us blinkered and going only where she directs the reins.

She's as much a traitor as the rest of them. High crimes and misdemeanors - the lot of the Dem and Repub congressional leadership.

Now seeing "the truth come forward" is on the table?

Gee, that's swell. That Pelosi's one great American.

She won't actually investigate any of this, least of all the warrantless wiretaps and interrogation of foreign detainees. Members of her own party were "in the loop" on those decisions very early on.

We HAVE to investigate the abuses - and they're endless - of the Bush administration. I'm less worried about charging them, but the entire truth must be known and explained in as simple of terms that it would take for the dumbest Republican to understand, what EXACTLY the Bush administration did in the eight long years they were in office.

Never again can voters be allowed to vote into office a George Bush, in ANY form.

If the new government won't investigate, then the up-til-now complacent (and complicit) press must do it.

But the truth must come out.

All the Bushylvanian pardons in the world combined cannot prevent criminal investigations from taking place; neither can those pardons prevent the findings of those investigations from being made public, nor can they protect those guilty of criminal wrongdoing from the righteous wrath of an American citizenry bent on eradicating from the hallowed soil of this Republic the steroids-enhanced poltergeists of the Nixon era.

Steve W@1.16p - Bush hasn't really pardoned anybody, yet. Can he still do it between now and Tuesday? Just curious...

"It's just a matter of who can say/do what while maintaining the support of the American public ..." (@ 12:22p)

Precisely.

An investigation into whether laws have been broken? Hurrah! Right on! Seriously problematical (for the anger it stirs up) is the more common call for investigating and/or prosecuting Bush/Cheney. I'm no less guilty than Pelosi or anyone else on this score. I've been out for blood, too, wanting to see those two + half the Justice Department in the stocks. But first let's tiptoe in quietly and uncover the systematic, arrogant lawbreaking.

Let's do it methodically and without bombast. Then, when we have the goods, let's hit 'em with everything we've got! Problem: We need to brace ourselves. "They" may turn out to include some of the current majority party. We ready for that?

investigations are grand to Pelosi as long as they don't touch on Pelosi's own criminal complicity wink and nod to the bush regime criminality regarding torture and illegal spying on Americans. That one is surely 'off the table'.

And lets not look at how Pelosi singularly took the one tool Americans had to protect themselves against a crimal administration - impeachment away from them; the only tool where the POTUS can not block investigation by the people's house in finding out the truth. But now Pelosi is grand standing truth - what a piece of work.
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interesting how Pelosi has had both the power and the job description for two years to investigate politicization of the Justice Department, but is only now getting around to actually doing her job, and quite tepidly at that.

i can't help but think that eric holder's nomination hearing was a deliberate setting of the course for eventual prosecutorial investigations/indictments of those most guilty of unleashing torture. i think obama really CAN'T say much about this until after he is sworn in. remember, he's had to work with the bush administration all throughout the transition -- and it was bush who had to ask for the second $350 billion.

he's been very careful in what he has said -- he has not come out and said he won't investigate. he's been very ambiguous -- i think he's had to be.

so i would not be surprised if we see real prosecutorial investigation into not only torture and other clear war crimes, but the illegal activities that happened at DOJ under gonzales and others.

i'm amazed at how many people have already concluded that obama is gonna punt on this beofre he's already in office.

also, bush ain't gonna pardon anyone. he truly believes no one did anything wrong. his wholesale defense of his "tough decision" made this very clear. pardons don't make any sense to him. what's to pardon? to him it was all legal and nothing bad happened anyway. so don't expect pardons. and yes, bush has the legal right to issue pardons all the way up to noon on tuesday. just don't expect it.

In the same sense that people felt that Mr. Obama's comment about asking for military advice about pulling out of Iraq in 16 months meant that he wasn't going to keep his promise to leave, so this business of not thumping his chest and loudly proclaiming that he will go after the miscreants is being mistranslated into he is not going after the miscreants. At least I certainly hope it's a mistranslation.

Also, where was Pelosi these last two years?

As for Bush's pardons, he has to be fairly cautious because if he pardons someone who isn't in the sights of the investigators yet, people will wonder what they've been doing. Also, there is the thing about giving out pardons is the same as admitting that what they did was criminal. I don't think that Bush is ready to do that yet. I hope he stays that way until the 21st when it doesn't matter anymore.

In the same sense that people felt that Mr. Obama's comment about asking for military advice about pulling out of Iraq in 16 months meant that he wasn't going to keep his promise to leave, so this business of not thumping his chest and loudly proclaiming that he will go after the miscreants is being mistranslated into he is not going after the miscreants.

Yep. We've had eight years of chest thumping, loud proclamations and fuck ups of mass destruction. I LOVE the fact Obama is speaking softly.

The best part is a lot of those crooks are thinking the lack of chest thumping means they're safe. The smarter ones have covered themselves in a thick layer of lawyers.

I think Pelosi's approach can win (and deserves to) because it isn't as directly hindered by the excuse, yadda was necessary for national security. That might apply to some actions about detainees and wiretapping etc., but not the intrigue involving prosecutors etc.

Either Democrats in the White House and the U.S. Congress seriously address the criminal abuses of outgoing Bush administration officials or they will experience similar voter backlash come the next election like the Republicans experienced in the past two elections.

A whole lot of patriotic U.S. citizens do not take kindly to having our Constitution trashed, our laws broken and our reputation around the world sullied by a bunch of right-wing thugs hell-bent on establishing a permanent conservative majority in our freedom-loving liberal democracy.

We are a nation of laws. If they broke the law, then the wheels of justice need to spin.

Washington DC is not a law free zone. If the laws were such a problem, then they can change them - that's their freaking job.

If we sweep this under the rug AGAIN, then it will happen AGAIN just the way it's been happening since Nixon was pardoned.

And for those Repubs who are against this, just remember that this door swings both ways and you are on the losing end of this door right now and for the foreseeable future.

"whether" the Bush administration broke the law

That whether makes me nervous. I would like to see "how many times".

La vendetta.