Key Democrats Enabled Lawless Behavior By Bush Administration

Silvio Berlusconi would be proud of them.
And if you excuse me now, I have to dig up the commissioners of the EU that signed that co-operation treaty with your intelligence agencies and sit in a corner and cry.

This is no surprise. That Pelosi at least had been shown the CIA's torture methods was made public months ago. It does not impress. Obama has said he'll investigate the Bush Administration's atrocities to see if they managed to dodge the law effectively or not, and to do something if not. We shall see.

If he wins the presidency.

Which he won't.

Considering that Bush and Cheney are republicans, as are their entire enabling posse, and all but a handful of the republicans in congress are and have been 100% behind them and their unlawful and immoral justifications for torture, it seems a little ridiculous to lay this at the dems' feet. Yeah, key dems were/are cowardly enablers but how about we first point the finger at the actual committers of war crimes and establish that they in fact committed war crimes, and try as a people to get congress to hold them accountable?

What Glenn Greenwald is responding to this amazing and blood curdling interview with Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side.

This piece is a strong recommend!

I'm just as pissed off as any sensible person with a brain and a conscience, but I think this whole effort to throw dems - even the most lily-livered among them - to the wolves is erroneous. It's a nice meme for republicans but beyond that ultimately useless moving forward.

These dems were brought in at a point at which any kind of word against the president was considered all but bolshevikian. They were brought in specifically to dirty them and use them as a human shield against later investigations/prosecution. Even now, investigations into this regime's lawless practices gets at best stonewalled and at worst colluded against and refused. Plus, I'm sure a lot of people of either party are just flat out scared of what this administration will do to them if they blow any whistles.

But it's important to remember: the dems didn't conceive of it; they didn't do legal acrobatics to enable it; they didn't commit these acts. They may have stood by and done nothing, which is a crime but a lesser crime. Giving this whole "the dems did it too!" meme any kind of momentum -- while Bush sits as president of the United States -- just seems like missing the forest for the trees to me.

That's why I said we'll see about these investigations now that Democrats may be implicated as well.

Jane Mayer is going to be on Thom Hartmann's radio show tomorrow and I will be listening. He's on Air America (and streaming on its website), Sirius left and in local syndication mornings at 9AM -- 12PM pacific time. Recommend!

I'm not convinced anything was illegal until there has been charges and a trial. This is America and apparently, everyone and their brother has forgotten a little thing called due process and innocent until proven guilty. When the lawmakers are the ones breaking the law and passing laws with immunity and they aren't enforcing the laws, as far as I am concerned it is legal. Immoral, and irreprehensible perhaps but not illegal. The problem is, the Democrats are coming out and saying laws have been broken that there have been lies but there hasn't been any progress on it, there hasn't been any evidence turned over to a court system, why? Because they benefit from the accusations. They're not willing to go after Bush or anyone else because they are culpable and it would take away from their election strategy.

Personally, I'd love for everyone to vote for the other guy. Even if it is in the primaries, vote out every single person in the government except for a very select few (McCain, Feingold, Kennedy, etc..) the ones that have proven they can work across party lines and put the interests of the country first and send a wake up call to the people up for re-election with a little sticker attached to each new Representative and Senator that reads "You're Next" with an expiration date of their peers next election.