More on Pardons

That there’s a precedent for one president revoking the pardon of a previous president is hopeful news for someone, like me, who believes that Bush and Cheney should die in prison cells.

KT here–

Hellslittle: But who would put them there? I’m not seeing much appetite for prosecutions among the Obama team or Congress at this point. I think they feel that they have plenty enough on their plates as it is.

KT
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What I see and I know others won’t agree with me is the Obama team trying to give the Justice Dept the opportunity to pursue charges against the Bush Administration without making it look like it was at their direction. I don’t think its a coincidence that the Senate Armed Services report came out just as the Bush Administration is getting ready to leave office.. See if Obama comes out and says he wants Bush prosecuted he will.
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1. Lose political capital with a lot of people who think he is just being vengeful and not really being about change.
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2. Look like he is politicizing the Legislative Branch just like Bush did.
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3. Risk losing even more political capitol if the prosecutions fail to get a guilty verdict against any Bush Administration figures.
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But if the DOJ comes out and prosecutes Bush all on their own then Obama can simply say that he is all about law and justice and let the chips fall where they may. He loses nothing in that proposition because the average person believes in our justice system even if that faith is many times misguided. Now I am not saying that its guaranteed that the DOJ will prosecute Bush but I AM saying that Obama is handling it exactly right if he does want them to prosecute Bush. I think it would be dumb as all hell for Obama to come out and say he wants them prosecuted. What gives me hope is that if they DIDN’T want him prosecuted then surely they would have said that but recently Biden said nothing is off the table. And that is what makes me believe that while it might not happen immediately, eventually many people in the Bush Administration will have their day of reckoning in court.
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Also from the other thread KT you said I assume that Bush will give out some big name pardons and I don’t necessarily, thats why I used the word if in my commment. HOWEVER recently a WH spokesman refuted the meme that Bush won’t be issuing a flurry of pardons. Here is a link to the thinkprogress article on the exchange but I encourage everyone to go to thinkprogress.org because they have two or three articles up right now on the subject of that revoked pardon.
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http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/23/bush-more-pardons/

KT, first, thanks for posting a blog that will run a gazillion before it is over. I doubt that a pardon can be overturned, either by the grantor, or by previous grantors. This is lawyers heaven. Can a pardon be granted to a dead person who cannot receive it?
Bush withdrawing the pardon priviously granted will be subject to maybe internable litigation, while the grantee remains in prison. I care?
Not. There are bigger matters at hand than this punk in prison. But I will enjoy watching the discussion over the next day or so, and thanks again for that.

#2 Should have said “look like he is politicizing the Judicial Branch.
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Too much Remy

What’s Remy?

For me, it was too much turkey tryptophan. Fell asleep on the couch with relatives all around me visiting. Embarrassing.

I would love the power to pardon. Giving the unfairly jailed freedom sounds like a blast to me.

It’ll be interesting to see how this case shakes out.

How does it all look from here?
- making a political contribution – mere $30,000 among the $millions in political contributions – unpardonable.

- selling our top military (aircraft) secrets to the enemy/foreigners and thus jeopardizing our national security – pardonable – no big deal.

OK. I got the wrong picture. What grinch stole the right one?

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Already the beltway press is lobbying to let the top officials of the Bush Administration off the hook for the crimes they committed while in office. That’s what Karen means by “not seeing much appetite.” She probably has no idea what “the appetite” is inside the Obama administration. The beltway elite have no respect for American law and many don’t believe that those laws should apply to them and their social class, including the criminal bushies. Of course, no one enjoys seeing the people with whom they socialize charged with crimes, tried and convicted. But people outside that narrow little world of Washington DC understand that when people commit crimes, especially serious felonies, even if they are neighbors and cocktail buddies, they should be held to account for that. And that is particularly true for people who hold public office.
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Scott Horton makes the case in Harper’s Magazine: Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration
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This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself. It transformed the Justice Department into a vehicle for voter suppression, and it also summarily dismissed the U.S. attorneys who attempted to investigate its wrongdoing. It issued wartime contracts to substandard vendors with inside connections, and it also defunded efforts to police their performance. It spied on church groups and political protesters, and it also introduced a sweeping surveillance program that was so clearly illegal that virtually the entire senior echelon of the Justice Department threatened to (but did not in fact) tender their resignations over it. It waged an illegal and disastrous war, and it did so by falsely representing to Congress and to the American public nearly every piece of intelligence it had on Iraq. And through it all, as if to underscore its contempt for any authority but its own, the administration issued more than a hundred carefully crafted “signing statements” that raised pervasive doubt about whether the president would even accede to bills that he himself had signed into law.

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Horton goes on:
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Open criminality is a cancer on democracy. It implicates all who know of the conduct and fail to act. Such compliance presents a practical crisis, in that a government that is allowed to torture will inevitably transgress other legal limits. But it also presents an existential political crisis. Many democracies have simply collapsed as the people permitted their leaders to abandon the rule of law in the face of alleged external threats. The turn to torture was rapid, for instance, in Argentina at the time of the Dirty War and in Chile after the American-directed coup against Salvador Allende. In both cases, that turn had little to do with a perceived benefit from the use of torture in interrogation. To the contrary, the very criminality of the act had a talismanic significance. It asserted the primacy of the will of the torturer. It made the claim, for all to accept or reject, that the ruler was the law. Such a claim is, of course, intolerable to democracy, which presupposes, as Thomas Paine wrote, that “the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

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Read the whole thing. He lays the whole thing out.
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Remember, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Rove, Wolfowitz were Nixon operatives. So was George HW Bush. The Ford pardon of Nixon enabled them to burrow into the federal system, only to appear again and again in subsequent Republican Administrations. They learned with the Nixon Pardon and then with ABSCAM and Iran- Contra that the DC elite had no stomach for holding rightwing Republican operatives to account.
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And then Iran Contra crimes and Daddy Bush pardoned those felons, who also reappeared in 43′s administration: Abrams, Poindexter. So you had a number of outright criminals from the past 40-odd years, having infested the federal government all those years, reappear in the second Bush Administration. And by then, they figured out that they could act with impunity, because the DC press elite has no stomach for seeing their friends and neighbors stand in the dock, no matter what the crime. It isn’t the same for Democrats, however.
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Bill Clinton went on television and told the nation that he didn’t have sex with Monica Lewinsky. For that he was impeached, to the gleeful delight of the beltway press; indeed, they aided and abetted the rightwing Whitewater jihad and the impeachment.
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Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Condoleeza Rice went on television for years and years repeating the outright lie “we don’t torture” and then at the end it’s all PSYCH!! Yes we did! And there “is no appetite” in DC to investigate those crimes or prosecute the public officeholders who committed them and lied about it.
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How sick, how profoundly depraved, are these people? As Horton notes at the link above “5. It is not without justification that Bush was able to claim in 2005, ‘We had an accountability moment, and that’s called the 2004 elections.’ Such taunts recall the (likely apocryphal) moment when William Tweed, the corrupt head of New York’s Tammany Hall, was confronted with indisputable evidence of graft. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do about it?’”
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Indeed so. As Bush told Martha Raddatz “Yeah? So what?”
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(well this is a rather slow-paced thread)

Mmm, my hope that Bush and Cheney get what they deserve hangs on whatever I can find to hang it on. The worst those creeps have done is probably not yet known, and perhaps the Justice Dept. will find the courage Congress lacked. There was a time when Obama was thought not to have a chance, either.
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I’m really liking Swampland under KT. It feels a bit like Froomkin’s place at the Post.

To echo what hellslittleangel said, one of the best reasons to investigate the outgoing administration is simply to find out what we don’t know. It’s remarkable that the press, the organ nominally responsible for finding out what we don’t know, should take so little interest.
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Maybe we can have a truth commission. Absolve Cheney if we will confess his actions and show contrition (yeah, right).

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Cheney must never be absolved of his crimes. That will only insure that another Republican will commit the same crimes, or worse, when they regain power. We saw that after Nixon, after Reagan/Bush I. All those criminals showed up in the present Bush Administration.
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The beltway press has no appetite for reporting the extent of crimes committed by the Bush Administration. (Many of them know, I’m pretty sure.) True, there is much we don’t know. All we know is what reporters such as Risen and Lichtblau have written about, and remember the NYT spiked his domestic spying story for more than a year. We don’t know what else the NYT is hiding, let alone what reporters and investigators haven’t yet discovered.
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So this means it’s really George Bush’s fault that Marc Rich remains pardoned.
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But it really seems like a contradiction to “unpardon” somebody. Once an offense has been taken off the books through a pardon there’s no crime to reinstate. Sort of double jeopardy. So I wonder if presidents after Grant just decided this was a bad precedent, or if it gradually got lost to history.
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Leave it to Bush to find a technicality to let him do what he wants, and mostly because he didn’t want there to be an “appearance” of impropriety.
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formerly james: Toussie “has been out of jail for several years now, working as a real estate and marketing consultant” (Washington monthly). I think most pardons are given to people already out of prison.

I am disturbed at the “lack of appetite” for convicting people in politics who commit crimes. Heck, I don’t like the fall gut attitude either. Typically, one person is named as the whole source of widespread corruption, and it is considered debased to actually pursue the situation past them.
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This is another facet of high Broderism that needs to go by the wayside. If the crimes of the Nixon administration, plus Iran-Contra were pursued in the way that say inner city crimes were pursued, many of the bad actors in the Bush administration wouldn’t have been in power to do the bad things. Ruth Marcus I am looking at you.
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One of the values in this country I loathe is the quest to lock of poor criminals for a very long time, but to grant leniency to a Charles Keating, a Cap Weinberger, a Mike Milken, a Scooter Libby. Their kids go to school with the village kids. They have BBQ’s on labor day. They don’t deserve real punishment. That 20 year old “thug” in the hood deserves no mercy though.

KT here–

James et al: I don’t think this is about the Beltway press at all. Believe it or not, we are not in charge of the government. I think it is about an Administration and a Congress that are going to have their hands full with a plateful of ONGOING problems at home and abroad that is practically unprecedented. And, sgwhite, a Justice Department being run by someone like Eric Holder doesn’t strike me as one that would launch into this on its own.
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I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing to do. I’m just saying I don’t see the forces at work to make it happen. The place that something like this might conceivably happen is in international court. But I don’t understand that system enough to speculate on the likelihood there.

KT, there always seems to be an excuse to excuse things though. Even if the economy miraculously turned around on January 20th, Iraq was bathed in flowers, there would be no appetite to prosecute and pursue the crimes of the Bush administration.
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I am not just blaming the DC press here. I KNOW that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have no appetite for it as well. It’s just not done. Period. We still don’t know who put the names of the US Attorneys on that list. We may never know. It’s “the past”. I just wish say, the people in prison for non violent drug offenses would get the same treatment as somebody who violated the constitution in office. It’s the dichotomy that really annoys me. Somebody who abuses their authority has less to worry about than some nobody. But this is not exactly something new under the sun.

KT:
The press certainly bears some of the blame. If the press had hammered on the Bush thugs for real crimes the way they hammered on the Clintons for the fantasy crimes of Whitewater, Congress might have been pressured into doing its job.

KT here–

Trifecta: I think one indicator of where the focus of attention is is the fact that Henry Waxman left the committee that would be doing the investigating (staging a pretty dramatic coup to do it) so that he could run Energy and Commerce.

But Karen, you can’t very well deny that the DC press is starting to weigh in about this. Ruth Marcus, Joe Klein. Ruth Marcus made the preposterous assertion that we should just forget about all those crimes in order to assure that this would “never happen again.” The Washington Post is granting op-ed space to people coming out of the woodwork to make the argument that we should “move on” and that these are such good-hearted people that we should overlook these “perfectly understandable” crimes. Los Angeles Times had an editorial urging the same thing Wednesday.
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I don’t think you can make an argument that the DC press elite are irrelevant to the discussion.
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It may be fine to bring the bushies to the dock in the International Court for their war crimes, but that doesn’t touch the domestic criminal activity, as outlined in the Scott Horton piece and elsewhere.
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This administration did more than commit crimes. It waged war against the law itself. It transformed the Justice Department into a vehicle for voter suppression, and it also summarily dismissed the U.S. attorneys who attempted to investigate its wrongdoing. It issued wartime contracts to substandard vendors with inside connections, and it also defunded efforts to police their performance. It spied on church groups and political protesters, and it also introduced a sweeping surveillance program that was so clearly illegal that virtually the entire senior echelon of the Justice Department threatened to (but did not in fact) tender their resignations over it. It waged an illegal and disastrous war, and it did so by falsely representing to Congress and to the American public nearly every piece of intelligence it had on Iraq. And through it all, as if to underscore its contempt for any authority but its own, the administration issued more than a hundred carefully crafted “signing statements” that raised pervasive doubt about whether the president would even accede to bills that he himself had signed into law.

Justice after Bush: Prosecuting an outlaw administration—By Scott Horton (Harper’s Magazine)
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Read it and weep.

KT here–

James, some day I will post about something and you will not answer by saying that whatever it is is the fault of the DC press corps. At least, that is my dream. I also want a pony, and my kids want a puppy.
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Ruth Marcus is a columnist. The last I heard, she was not in charge of the Justice Department. And if she counts as the press corps, doesn’t Scott Horton as well? I’m just telling you here what I think: Press corps or no, I don’t think the appetite is there. This is not me expressing a preference. I am simply telling you what I think based on talking to the kinds of people who are actually making these decisions. It is not on their radar screen, and given what else they have to deal with in the next couple of years, I doubt that it will be.

Also, Karen, this is so ironic:
I’m just saying I don’t see the forces at work to make it happen.
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You in the DC press just specialize in the passive voice when it serves you. All of a sudden, journos’ job isn’t to hold people accountable? Why, just the other day Mark Whitaker said (about Obama) “Our job is to hold him to account,” adding that he thinks “we’re going to have to get tougher.” Or is that just Obama, not Bush and Cheney?
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What I am saying, Karen, is that there is very REAL “appetite” in the real world to hold these criminals to account. The DC press corps is actively working against that. Yes, Ruth Marcus has a column in the Washington Post, doesn’t she? Does Scott Horton? No, he doesn’t.
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What would you have me call the collective of people in Washington DC who have media platforms on which to expound their views and their reporting of the world around them? I’m not married to the term DC press corps, it is shorthand to me. If you give me a term which is less offensive to you, then I will use it.
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I really, really hope you get that pony, too.

KT, I agree about Waxman. I also forgot to point out that Obama has zero interest in pursuing Bush crimes. It does seem a bit one sided though. We got 12 hours of hearings into the christmas card list of Socks the cat. But to be fair, the Republicans gave up on that stuff the second Clinton left office. They just gave up on oversight all together.
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I for one don’t blame the press corps for this attitude. I just however think that the only institution that could force D.C. to do the right thing is the press. It’s a nuance, but it’s there. Obama won’t want to pursue war crimes for torture. Reid and Pelosi won’t either. Without a full throated media demanding it, it won’t happen. This is not blaming the press, it’s just that the press has the only platform that could possibly create a will to do something.

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trifecta, or at least stop trying to scuttle the effort of others who would try to pursue these crimes.
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KT here–

Trifecta and James: If there was a full-throated public demand right now, something like that might happen. But while this is being hotly debated in the blogosphere, most people are far more worried about the state of their retirement savings and whether they are going to have a job next week. They are glad to see the page turning, are glad to see the Bush folks gone, and they want Obama to focus on fixing their immedidate and ongoing problems, which is going to be more than a full time job. At least, that’s my read of the political mood.

Oh, and we still need to win a couple of wars. (See my post above this one.)

“I’m not seeing much appetite for prosecutions among the Obama team or Congress at this point.”
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KT-Maybe it is not because the Obama administration or Congress has too much on their plate that is causing the lack of appetite.
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Instead, I contend the lack of appetite stems from the documented facts available that most of what the Bush administration did was actively cheered on by, enabled by or covered up by the Congress, elite think tanks and the press. So if Bush’s and Cheney’s future is to wind up a jail cell, then Pelosi, Harman, Rockefeller, Reid, a whole host of republican leaders and elite members of the press should be joining them there. There were a few notable exceptions, but the operable word is few.
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The truly dispicable behavior of the democrats in all this just can not be emphasized enough. How it worked was pretty simple. Give very serious, troubled, civic-responsibility looks and statements at press conferences and urge holding the president and his administration accountable. Then go back to their chambers and give Bush everything he wanted with no strings attached. Write strongly worded stern letters to the administration requesting this or that, be tolded to f*** off by the administration and give Bush everything he wanted with no strings attached. Hold very important hearings and grand stand while being openly mocked and laughed at by administration officials who seemed to have only to bothered to show up because they had nothing more entertaining to do that day. Then give Bush what ever he wanted with no strings attached. Since we now know that they were briefed and knew full well what the administration was up to their Baghdad Bob performances at these events should be mocked for eternity.
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We all know Nancy didn’t take impeachment off the table for the good of the nation and in the spirit of moving forward. She took it off because any investigation would examine her own f***ing conduct and that of her fellow weak kneed colleagues. She is more concerned with herself not being held accountable.
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A lot the same elite who were complicit in the crimes of the Bush administration either actively or through acquiescence are either going to be a part of the Obama administration or are still in the Congress. And if they are not in either they will be given a platform in the press where they will be treated as very serious adults whose voices we should all listen to. The notable few, I mentioned previously will be marginalized and seen as unserious ranters. But no one will be held accountable and everything that happen and is happening now will happen again.

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Actually, that isn’t what I’m hearing from *my* family, friends and colleagues. They are adamant that Bush and Cheney stand trial for their crimes. Yes, they are also worried about the economy and their jobs, but they are capable of holding opinions on a variety of subjects at the same time! And I am talking about people who aren’t into reading blogs or political junkies. I think you are misunderstanding the mood out here, Karen. Where do you get your information on that?
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Yeah but gunny, I think we have to try. Out of respect for American law and the Constitution. I agree with you about the cowardly behavior of the Democrats, but that is leagues away from the overt actions of the bushies. There is no comparison.
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KT here–

James, LA: I get my information from a number of place. Yes, I read polls, where people rank their concerns. Believe it or not, I do get out of Washington from time to time. I read the blogs, and listen to talk shows. I also read the papers. But one of the best ways to gauge the public mood is to talk to members of Congress when they return to Washington from extended breaks (like this one). They often get an earful on things that don’t necessarily register in the polls. I will tell you what I’m hearing from them in January.

Interesting, too, that I cannot recall this coming up a single time in any of the countless town halls that I went to with candidates during the election, or in my interviews with people who were there. In fact, the only time I can think of a politician being confronted with the quesiton is when people like Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have been asked about it by reporters.

Here’s one instance where it did:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-06-28-obama-impeachment_N.htm

Can anyone else find instances where Obama addressed the question, or the question of subsequent prosecution?

I would love to see Bush and particularly Cheney pursued for the crimes they’ve committed. I’m really concerned that not holding them responsible increases the likelihood others will commit similar crimes.
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But Obama has built up an enormous store of good will in the last 2 months (Pat Robertson thinks he has the makings of a great President) and all of the good will and more is going to be necessary to move things through the Congress that they (Democrats as well as Republicans)will balk at.
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If Bush and Cheney are investigated, tried, convicted, it will be a pyrrhic victory if we don’t get the economy stimulated without a billion earmarks, don’t get a start on turning the energy economy around, don’t make a fresh start on recovering our standing in the world. We need optimism and a sense of possibility. The best remedy for a lot of the ills bush and cheney caused is a very successful Obama presidency.
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I know it’s reasonable to think that holding bushcheney accountable will increase our standing in the world, but that possibility would be offset by those who realize for the first time the sort of sleaze our president was involved in, and will, inevitably, detract from Obama.
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But more power to the international court. Have at it.

James and KT – just saw a poll on CBS this morning that for 34% Obama is the most admired person in the world. 5% for Bush, 3% for McCain.

Here’s a more equivocal answer:
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http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/Barack_on_torture.html

There wasn’t a great public demand to fix Walter Reed until Dana Priest wrote her article. I agree with you KT. There is no wide public demand for pursuing the crimes of this admin. My response though, is so what?
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Should they be pursued is the right question. We tortured people and violated the Geneva Conventions. If only 2% of people thought we should do anything about it, does that mean we ignore it?
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Obviously, we will. But, perhaps, just perhaps the reason our country is so dysfunctional in DC and Wall Street is this attitude. Conspiracy theory time btw. I really wonder if Elliot Spitzer was singled out because of what he was doing in regard to Wall Street. Much more attention was given to what he did, then to what he was pointing out.
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Look over there, a shark!

But one of the best ways to gauge the public mood is to talk to members of Congress when they return to Washington from extended breaks (like this one). They often get an earful on things that don’t necessarily register in the polls. I will tell you what I’m hearing from them in January.
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I’ll be interested to read your report Karen.
I’m just saying, many of the people I know, from typist clerks all the way up to physicians and high-level managers, who aren’t news junkies or even watch much news on TV, are remarkably angry about what these criminals have done to our country. I’m not claiming it is their number one issue, but they want to see some accountability from these people. They want to see our government deal with the crimes that have been committed. Would they name that as their number one or two concern in a survey, like I would? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an “appetite” for it. People are deeply angry about what these criminals did.
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KT – that link at 36 was very interesting – Obama sounded more open to pursuing crimes than I would have expected him to acknowledge. But that was then, and he has even more problems on his plate now. He has been explicit in saying that waterboarding is torture, and he would not dispute that torture is illegal. But he left himself (and Cheney) and out when he talked about “knowlingly” committing crimes. So Cheney “didn’t know” it was illegal, because he thinks waterboarding isn’t illegal – or, as he’s told us, if the president does something during war it’s not illegal.
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I’m trying to picture Eric Holder in the role of the Attorney General pursuing this and having a hard time. These questions will almost certainly come up at Holder’s already scheduled-to-be contentious hearings. Any scuttlebutt about regrets in naming Holder?

While he’s handing out pardons, maybe Bush could show at least a little class and ask Prime Minister Maliki to pardon the shoe-thrower.

Part of the problem with using the ‘public mood’ to determine the degree to which investigations are called for is that the ‘public mood’ directly reflects what is already commonly known. The fact that the public isn’t calling for anyone’s head reflects the fact that the cover-ups accomplished so far have been effective. It’s a good time to remind everyone that the reason the cover-ups have been so effective is because the whole contraption, Republicans, Democrats and Cable chatters were all comlicit in the original offense. Cheney is bragging on the fact that all the democratic leadership in the Congress and on the intelligence committee’s were fully breifed on the NSA spying and the CIA rendition programs. Many Republicans are fond of pointing out that extraordinry rendition was pioneered during the Clinton administration.
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There’s a slogan that became popular over recent years that says, ‘If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention’.
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The bottom line is that an aggressive press remains our only hope for actually revealing what’s been going on for the last seven years. Once people know the full story, the desire for justice may take better root.

Lesson-Screw up the economy and all that entails (home market, jobs, etc,) start two wars and then when you leave office there will be “too much” on the next president’s plate to investigate your administration’s crimes.
Well played w.
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What a bunch of hogwash.

” And, sgwhite, a Justice Department being run by someone like Eric Holder doesn’t strike me as one that would launch into this on its own.”
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“someone like Eric Holder”? Care to flesh that out a bit KT? I am hoping against hope that you don’t use the name Marc Rich in your answer, should you answer.

Just how does the public get interested? How did they get interested in Rev Wright, the bitter comments, Hillary’s laugh, flag pins, hand over the heart, Sarah Palin’s clothes? My wild out the box guess is because the media both in print and the cable yakkers covered these issues constantly at the expense of more important issues. Silly huh?
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Interesting thing about the bitter comments. Since Barrack was elected gun sales when up. Since the financial crisis has hit a lot of people are turning to their churches for support. What elitist things to do.

KT Said: If there was a full-throated public demand right now, something like that might happen.
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Where would we hear that “full-throated demand” if not in the press? If I go out on the street and start screaming, do you think that’ll get anybody’s attention….except the neighbors and guys in white jackets? If I write a letter to the editor, will it get published (by the same press that won’t take this issue on anyway), and if it does how many people who can do something about it will read it? I say again, Where does that demand come from, if not you? Do you really know anything that doesn’t come from the decision-makers or other members of the press.
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Our opinions are shaped by what we know and hear, and you are the message carriers!

KT here–

P-NNTO: I mean, he strikes me as very cautious and on-message. I hate it when you commenters reach for any excuse to bring up Marc Rich…

also, terrymck at 45:

I disagree. Public demand often runs way ahead of the press. Reaching for the way-back machine, I recall that when Clinton appointed Zoe Baird and then found out she had an illegal nanny issue, there was a big ho-hum from the Washington press because so many of them either had illegal nannies or knew someone who did. it was only when the calls started flooding the Capitol swithboard that pols realized they had a problem on their hands. I think immigration, too, has been an issue like that. The pols heard it from their constituents at home long before the press was on to it. So the question on this is: Are people flooding the Capitol switchboard with a demand for prosectutions? Are they writing letters and sending emails? Are they bringing it up whenever a Congressperson holds a town hall forum at home?

KT here–

that last comment also answers gunny. pols have a very good antenna for when something is capturing the public’s attention.
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now i’m signing off to go check out the after-christmas sales. which are kind of great and kind of scare me.

I hate to be the one pointing this out, but the vast majority of Americans stopped really thinking a long time ago, or we wouldn’t have elected guys like Nixon and Bush in the first place. Our national psyche, and our our individual ability to generate ideas, are products of our personal mileaus and by what we read and hear. In other words, unless otherwise informed, we will likely adapt our opinions to fit those of our friends and family, which we have seen can reap some ugly outcomes.
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The American press is our source of enlightenment, not just factual reportage. PLEASE don’t abandon the constitutional powers you were given to not just be a reporter of what’s going on, but more importantly to surface ideas, challenge and provoke.

Where are Woodward and Bernstein?

KT
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If the Republicans put Eric Holder through a wringer during his confirmation hearings but he still gets confirmed you REALLY think he won’t be willing to go after Bush and Cheney? You might be right, but I am betting on revenge because its the most constant motivator in the universe.

I said: but the vast majority of Americans stopped really thinking a long time ago
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Of course, I should have begun with, “Present company excepted…”

” I hate it when you commenters reach for any excuse to bring up Marc Rich… ”
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Hey! I think I was zinged by KT.

KT here–

Terry: I think we are talking about two different things. One is exposing the truth, the other is prosecuting as a result of it. As you will note in what I posted earlier (#36), that Obama quote was in direct reaction to press reports. The public mood on whether to prosecute is based on more than the information itself. It will factor in what else is on the agenda, and whether as Kathy suggests (#34), people fear that the political capital expended on doing that would make it harder for Obama to get the kind of bipartisan cooperation he is going to need to get the economy fixed. Also, whether people–in voting for “change”–just wanted to turn the page, and move on.

Now I really am going shopping. It’s my patriotic duty.

Here is the funny thing, if I go out and shoot somebody the cops won’t give one wit about whether there is public sentiment to prosecute my ass.
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What a ass backwards world we live in.

KT: Thanks for the response, Kathy, and I still hope the press will, as it has throughout history, challenge and provoke the process, not just the deed. It’s the only way anything sinister is attended to in this busy, hyper-political nation. There are just too many parties to attend, after all, and too many people to please.

@sg
That’s sort of what Glenn has been railing about all week. Apparently politicians represent a protected class wherein crimes aren’t actually crimes if they’re committed in the line of duty.

This, of course flies in the face of everything that sets the USA apart from all the ‘rogue regimes’ and ‘failed states’ that we can invade with impunity due to their lawless nature.
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My own priority has always rested more on full disclosure of what went wrong rather than seeing actual jail-time meted out, but the bottom line remains, that as long as there are no consequences for evil actions, they will continue unabated. It’s just unalloyed human nature.

Paul Dirks
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My thing is this, how in the world can we ever call anyone else a war criminal when we won’t even INVESTIGATE to see if there were any running our country. For all we know an investigation would actually exonerate Bush and Cheney. But to not even look into their actions, to basically not only absolve them but endorse their actions by our silence we should have NO right to ever go after any other leader/dictator/elected official in the world who perpetrates war crimes. This do as I say not as I do crap is not going to help us on the world stage.

Digby has a post explaining why the pardon was revoked.
Sigh Not simply an attempt to do the right thing.
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It’s sadly because the pardon would have made it harder for the Republicans to tank Eric Holder’s nomination on the basis of the Marc Rich pardon. One of their most substantial hissy fits was that that Holder signed off on it when it hadn’t gone through proper channels (something that was not unprecedented then either.) It turns out that this Bush pardon was granted under similar circumstances.
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Remember, Rove is orchestrating the Holder strategy and he’s made clear that the Rich pardon is going to be at the center of it.
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Sigh again. (Hope the tag works – Hope you had a Merry Christmas preview – we miss you.)

ivb
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I have a little something up speaking on the reasoning behind revoking Toussie’s pardon. And also the contradiction from Tony Fratto on why Alan Maiss’ pardon had nothing to do with political contributions. There is a pretty clear statement from Dana Perino that Toussie’s pardon was overturned in large part because of the appearance of impropriety because of the contribution Toussie’s people gave to the RNC, but Fratto says they would NEVER consider whether or not a person asking for a pardon gave contributions when deciding whether or not to grant the pardon. I wonder if any media folks will also notice that contradiction.

Karen, I suggest you go back to Josh Marshall’s blog. He has a lot more relevant stuff to say. It will take a court to sort this out, but I think Toussie will remain free.

gysgt213 Says:
“… the same elite who were complicit in the crimes of the Bush administration .. are either going to be a part of the Obama administration or are still in the Congress … ”
You are not recommending a comprehensive Iraq-style “regime change” here, are you? [Complete with certain actions taken against their democratically elected leaders, their political systems, their social systems, their religions and language etc ]

” .. But no one will be held accountable and everything that happen and is happening now will happen again. ..”
At least not held sufficiently accountable. Whereas many think that the memory of the Nuremberg trials served as a deterrent to those who would contemplate resurrecting the Nazi specter in Germany, our crimes against humanity are generally brushed off and whitewashed – and the culprits who committed the most atrocious acts merely given what amounts to a slap on the wrist. Think of the atrocities in Vietnam. Think about our adventurism in South America and the Caribbeans. Think of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib and our Guantanamo and the disposition of the cases against those found to have committed the horrendous acts. Remember our resistance to the idea of bringing charges against Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld and Co. at the ICC (where we and our allies piously and very publicly charge those we despise – like the Africans from weak Africa).

And we do it over again and again.
We are the world’s sole superpower – and we see no force on the horizon to give us pose. At least, not in a conventional sense.
[So, don't be too hard on our leaders for their bellicosity: It is said that over the past nearly 2,000 years, there have been less than 200 years in which a war wasn't raging somewhere. So, UNGUARD! And needless to say, we prefer weak opponents - preferably unarmed and preferably without a deep-rooted nationalism ..]