Perhaps then, our thirst will be sated.

Trust me, once you start down the path of vengeance the thirst will not be sated until there are no more enemies. And once the enemies are all gone you will look askance at wavering friends and turn them into enemies. Vengeance is like a narcotic, addictive, and if you play with it then it will soon own you. Be careful there - trust me, I know a few people with some unresolved grievances...

The Underground Railroad

I wish I could say that I would be content with a landslide. But not. As you said, so many of the dems are complicit in the crimes. They weren't just innocent bystanders, they aided and abetted the war, domestic spying, the economic crisis, the total lack of accountability.

Should the dems really take over I don't see them rectifying any of their errors because I don't think they see them as errors. It is going to take several election cycles to clean house if that's even possible. As Christy at FDL keeps reminding us all, this is a marathon, not a sprint.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the next steps are going to look like in the netroots. We may be the only ones pushing for accountability and if we cant get it retroactively, we're going to have to push for forward accountability. Our work has just begun. It's going to be an interesting ride methinks.

Barack Obama has too many big problems to tackle to get sidetracked with a truth and reconciliation project.

You also write:

Bush and Cheney should have been impeached.

Perhaps those big problems that Obama faces could be solved with a little hardheaded justice. Not in the name of vengeance but rather in the name of probity.

Of honor.

Of warning to other potential miscreants.

I doubt...sadly, because I think that Obama knows and understands the depth of criminality that has been in power here for 8 long years...but I doubt that he will take strong steps to prosecute the worst of the criminals.

Not because of bipartisanship, not because he fears alienating the criminals within his own party (criminals and cowards both)  but because that is not the sort of path that that has thus far taken him as far as he has traveled.

Doing so would actually be a masterstroke, like the conservative poker player who finally opens up and starts taking risks once he has amassed a substantial lead and proceeds to blow the rest of the table right out of the game. All he would have to do would be to hang one Ratpub out to dry...Cheney would be my own choice; he was born to take the villain's role...and the word would be out.

Do not mess with this President. He means business.

The full power of a revitalized Justice Department, aimed at the crimes of Dick Cheney?

Fuggedaboudit!!!

The investigation would shine a bright light into all of the dark corners of this kleptocracy, and the American people would support the effort.

However...Barack Obama has gone along to get along all of his life, and I believe that he will continue to play hjs cautious game.

So it goes.

If wishes were horses, Dick Cheney would be pummelled by many a hoof.

So it goes.

Onward and upward.

In a typically deliberate and safe manner.

Later...

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

And while you're at it, give them a kick for the rest of us.

Well said Boo. There is only one point I question-
Bipartisan consus. You know that that doesn't exist in DC.And that is why 60+ is so important!

would be a good thing. That would leave the Democrats as the party of the center-right and perhaps we could see the rise of a true progressive party in America.

I know. Probably not.

One thing that troubles me a bit is that there seems to be an attitude in some Democratic quarters which sounds more like something my 10 year old nephew might say, "If I can't have the shiny new bicycle for Christmas then I don't want any presents at all".

Obama most likely will not be a progressive's dream as President.  But after the last eight years, hey, I'm not going to complain if/when he triumphs over McCain and the GOP lizard brains.  To use a football metaphor, this is the first drive early in the first quarter of what will probably be a very long and difficult game.  I'm not going to believe the game is won if we march right down the field and score.  But I'm certainly not going to ask that our points not be put on the scoreboard just because it likely won't be the only touchdown scored in the game, by either team.

Be happy.  Think of the alternatives.  But don't think that the work is anywhere near done.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

Besides the ballot box, besides the overwhelming (well, hopefully) repudiation next Tuesday, I really would like to see one or two convictions of very high-level Bush administration appointees.  I'm talking cabinet level or higher.

Appreciate the tone of your response, Boo.

Since the blogosphere has done most of the heavy lifting since the Clinton Impalement, I would propose that we will now have to be in charge of the heavy lifting for truth and reconciliation.

It NEEDS to happen.  Just because the Beltway wants to live in denial and delusion doesn't mean that the rest of society can obtain sanity and sober reflection.

Kos had a good idea that, apparently, is heading in the direction of all great movements -- mediocrity.  It's the same thing that happens to a mutual fund that starts making money...once it makes REAL money, REAL money shows up and chokes it to death until the fund managers have to close it to new investors.

Desmond Tutu did what he did because he was a healer, first, and a religious figure, second.

The healers need to take this one over, Boo.  The angle we need to approach it from is one of psychological trauma, psychological abuse, destruction of the public commons for private gain, pathological lying, murder and the pathologies of excess wealth, privilege and power over time.

I think it's clear that the leadership class will not turn the light on itself, so we have to.  And it has to be a sustained and a sustainable effort -- plenty of opportunity to expend all that negative, revenge-based energy into a sobering reconciliation and resolution to higher things.

We need to secure the Internet as a public commons that is beyond the ability of private interests to manipulate, distort or control.  Once we have that almost complete, then we need to pick the bones of these carrion-men clean in the most methodical, satisfying manner possible.

There's something to be said for the mercy of the proverbial gunshot to the head because it is far cleaner and healthier to simply entangle the prey in a web of its own deceit and consume it at one's leisure.

there is no such thing as history. there are only historians.

What a concept - healing by gun.

This morning I turned on my teevee to catch up on world events and heard this:  "Get the facts at gun down Obama dot com"  on CNN in Minnesota.  

The horror!  Is there a place in the USA where such things are left unsaid? Certainly not the internet, nor the frog pond.  We are a very sick nation - last throes indeed.

I used to feel like Mme Defarge - but no more, think I outgrew it.

1. That voting is the only means of 'justice' available to "We the People."
   
2. That seeking justice by enacting the full force of the law is to seek revenge and therefore ill advised.

re 1.  a. see comment downthread; our vote has been manipulated to the point that it only serves to make the people complicit in the evil acts of their leaders, much like the Bush admin. manipulated the UN into warring on Iraq.  

1. b. Our individual vote is nearly as meaningless as some have claimed voting in Iran is (in Iran, candidates must be approved by a central authority before they can throw their turbans in the ring; in US, candidates must be approved by corporate sponsors and powerful interest groups before they are granted the ability to command a microphone to broadly disseminate their message.)

2. It is precisely the working through of legal processes that deflects righteous rage from seeking vengeance through anarchic means.  If legal process of justice is denied, there is a greater, not lesser, probability that an enraged populace will demand blood vengeance.

I don't believe in Justice, it's impossible for humans right now. (I subscribe to Fairness as Process.)

My vote is revenge.

I don't think the AZRepublic is part of the Village, but they are definitely conservative.  There's also language in that editorial that reminds me of small town protectionism of one of their own.  They forget that the Phoenix metro area is bigger than Philly, though.

Latino Político | "We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit." - Octavio Paz

First of all, let me say "Amen."
   Second, as to what the next administration can do or will do, I have what you might call a "meta-comment."
   Obama's electoral victory, and even more his inauguration, will be major historic events. Not even so much because he will be the first black president, but more because of the contrast he will pose to the the last eight years, and even the last 28 years, of American history.
   The very fact of his election, in all likelihood by a landslide, together with his "long coattails" in Congress, will set in motion what many have described as a "tectonic shift" in American politics.
   There has been much talk of the Republicans continuing the dirty tactics of the campaign into what will resemble, or be even worse than, their constant harrassment of the Clintons. They will definitely do this, but to vastly less effect. No one but the 25-percenters will pay any attention to them. They will resemble the Far Right of the 1930s, llike Gerald L.K. Smith, etc. Very nasty, but unable to cause much harm.
People forget that there have always been wingnuts, what's abnormal about the last 30 years is that they have been a major force in American politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_L._K._Smith
You can't get rid of them, but they will go back to the fringe where they belong.
   What I'm trying to say is that, over all, the political atmosphere in this country will be very different from what we have become accustomed to over the past three decades.
   Obama is someone who understands something that the Clintons just never did understand -- how to get the power of an inspired constituency behind you. Whatever you think of the Clintons, they are "top-down" politicians. They beguile the electorate to get them into  office; Obama has the support of the people that will help him carry out (to a large extent) truly popular measures.
   Under these conditions, we really don't know what this administration will be able to accomplish, but I expect it will be more than many people think, who are simply transposing the game of 1990s-2000's politics into the next era.
   I hope I'm not coming off sounding too starry eyed here. All I'm trying to say is that what Obama will have accomplished by the very fact of winning this election will be unprecedented, and even the yellow dogs and the Rahm Emanuels know they will have to adjust. The Washington game will not work in quite the same way. The precedent is the FDR landslide of 1932. This is at least part of the reason why so many Republicans are jumping ship now -- they know the jig is up.