Good, and let's start with the coordinated deception that the Corporate Media did to the American People in their collusion with Bush's Administration.

oh. right myke. keep up the good work.

Pat Leahy; small plane crash.

I give it 4 and a half months.

"Go f*ck yourself!" comes back to haunt Bush/Cheney.

Only slightly off topic, has anyone heard whether the number of FOIA requests has jumped substantially in the last couple of weeks?

Oh and Mike K reminds me of something else. Has anyone noticed that SNL seems to be having difficulties finding anything worth saying about politics lately?

The truly overbearing weight of clarity that results from hearing the truth is really more than the American public can stand.

It's thoughtful and prudent of the Obama administration to take the stress level of the country into consideration at this time and keep the people from hearing too many distressing things.

Stuff about rendition and torture is just...it's just unsettling. It exposes people we don't even know to criticism and could make a whole U.S. presidential administration look like a bunch of tin pot, third world criminal dictators without a f'ing clue.

Obama is saving us from ourselves and saving us from seeing all that other icky stuff. He really is such a thoughtful kind of guy.

If the Obama administration doesn't have the balls to prosecute Bush that an investigation will surely reveal, then let's at least have a truth and reconciliation commission-reveal the crimes and let The Hague come after these war criminals.

I look forward to seeing Bush and Cheney and their pals spending the remainder of their sorry lives huddled with lawyers trying to stay out of The Hague.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) has already raised the specter of an independent panel to investigate Bush-era abuses. No word yet on whether Leahy will coordinate with Conyers on this.

Let's see . . . just the crimes Bush & Co. committed that were impeachable offenses - but which were never really pursued - include:

- Warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens
- Perjury in Congressional testimony
- Collusion and accepting bribes from oil and energy companies (Cheney's 2001 secret meeting and permitting Enron's manipulations)
- Collusion and accepting bribes from contractors doing reconstruction in Iraq
- Collusion and accepting bribes from contractors doing reconstruction after Katrina
- Collusion and accepting bribes in the Interior Dept.
- Collusion and accepting bribes in environmental enforcement
- Deliberate manipulation of intelligence prior to Iraq
- Exerting political pressure in federal prosecutions
- War Crimes for treatment of prisoners
- Election fraud in Ohio in 2004
- "Caging" of minority voters

And those are the crimes we know about that I'm listing off the top of my head. It will take an army of special prosecutors to sort all these out. It's not that I don't think it's a worthwhile endeavor, but the general public will get "scandal fatigue" well before the whole process is over.

You go, Senator Leahy!!!!

The Bush Adminstration sullied the rule of law. All its members who willfully committed crimes need to be held responsible if by no other means than to have a big red letter "A" on their chests as we get to the bottom of such a travesty! -Kevo

(The "A" in this case is not for adultry, but rather represents asshole!)

The Bush Adminstration sullied the rule of law. All its members who willfully committed crimes need to be held responsible if by no other means than to have a big red letter "A" on their chests as we get to the bottom of such a travesty! -Kevo

Ummm . . . yeah, because that really hurt the careers of Oliver North and Elliot Abrams.

I had felt investigation would be counter productive considering the problems we're facing. They could just end up a draining disatraction. But now with the manner the Republicans are behaving, I think investigations are necessary.

Let the Obama adminstration stay out of and let Congress tackle it, but I think George Bush and the GOP in all their poisonous glory needed to be paraded infront of the public.

If the Obama administration doesn't have the balls to prosecute Bush that an investigation will surely reveal, then let's at least have a truth and reconciliation commission-reveal the crimes and let The Hague come after these war criminals.

The notion of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) raises a number of potentially awkward issues.

For example: Presumably, a US TRC would have to offer immunity from prosecution for people who come forward and tell the truth, as with the TRC in South Africa.

So maybe a few brave souls come forward and spill all the beans. Wouldn't we be obligated then to protect them from any prosecutions, either here or abroad?

The more I read about the heinous acts of Bush Administration the less sympathetic I get to the notion of truth and reconciliation. These people broke the law, violated treaties and just did whatever they wanted. Sure they had legal opinions prepared to support their actions so did lots of other notorious criminals.Torture and killing can not be reconciled away. Justice is required.

I say a grand jury investigation, indicitment and trial. Send the f*****s to prison.

The point, Leahy said, would not be to "humiliate people or punish people, but to get the truth out, so we don't make the same mistakes again.... We fought [a] revolution in this country so we could protest the actions of government. We should protect that."

This idea is flawed. The way you avoid having deliberate and knowing wrongdoing (not "mistakes") repeated is to punish the wrongdoers so that:
(1) you send the message, firmly, that you do not condone the behavior,
(2) you remove the capacity to engage in the same kind of wrongdoing from those who participated in the wrongdoing, and
(3) you deter those who would consider the same wrongdoing in the future.

Taking a pass on prosecuting serious, often capital, violations of existing criminal law because you don't want to "humiliate" or "punish" people that deliberately, knowingly committed serious offenses is not going to prevent others (and, in many cases, some of the same people) from doing similar wrongs in the future given the opportunity and similar motivations to those who did it the first time.