First, Congress has to reclaim and enforce the powers it was granted by the people.
2nd Judicial Branch needs a severe cleaning with Lysol and I wouldn't mind seeing one or all of the fired US attorneys begged back to act in conjunction with a Marty Lederman or Jack Balkin as an advisory committee that works from top down to return to the rule of law this country can trust again.

Last, how about if Ben & Jerry are brought in to run SBA??

I think he needs to insist, upon taking office, that congress dramatically increase the funding of the Inspector Generals in each department of the administration and then empower them to investigate and follow every lead whereever it takes them. Then he should just stay out of it and focus on the future. This way he can't be accused of picking and choosing which "political crimes" to prosecute. But this should have the desired affect of cleaning out all of the right-wing cronies minding the store now in career positions. Once their individual department gets put under the microscope and audited, they will flee like the rats that they are.

I think the first order of business in this department is an official and comprehensive list of breeches of law.  

Then let "the people" decide which transgressions require prosecution and which require a truth commission.  

The most important aspect is to associate criminals with criminal behaviour, and ensure that holdover criminals from the Nixon admin, and the Reagan admin, and the Bush admin, and the other Bush admin, are really not allowed back into government when the pendulum swings again in 8 or 12 years.

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

Those dealing with constitutional issues should be prosecuted, to avoid setting a precedent.

The bureaucracy should be cleaned out of obvious political appointees. This includes US attorneys, who should have discretion over cases in their own jurisdictions.

IMO the actionable crimes committed were

• Lying to congress during the '02 presidential State of the Union speech

• Obstruction of justice with the Rove/Libby case

• Continued illegal wiretapping after Ashcroft and his deputy director had refused to sign a FISA waver, but the Bush administration continued surveillance without a waver or a warrant.

These strike me as felonies which could not be ignored by an independent judicial system.  

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$170.42; SS, ~1400 words, mostly SFW

I wish I believed he'd do diddly -- but I am unconvinced. Running the campaign he has run -- attraction not contrast -- will mean that the only criminality he'll call out is the venal kind. The essential subversion of law and the Constitution will be treated as political mistakes, never repudiated.

The thought is depressing.

Can It Happen Here?

This adiministration has been very careful to insulate itself from liability by ostensibly relying on the advice of underlings or other agencies.  (ie reliance on the Gonzalez torture memo)  Unfortunately, what is realisticly prosecutable is likely considerably less than what should be prosecuted.  Of course, in reality the policies were crafted and then, subsequently, reliance was established but this would be difficult to prove.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

Read it here if you so desire.

"President Obama Is Going To Have To Decide!!!???" Fitzmas, v. 17b.

AG

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

Unfortunately, I don't think there will be the political will to go after a former President (though he so richly deserves to rot in the Hague). There may be some political will to go after a few of them. Gonzo, Rove, Meirs, Addington all come to mind.

Can Bush pre-pardon them if he choose to?

What I would really like to see, is anyone, in any branch of govt. with a degree from Liberty University immediately removed.

I think that there is a lot to be said for enforcing the rule of law, but the bigger issue as far as I am concerned is that he has placed people all over the fed that are Kool-aid drinkers. They need to be rooted out, and replaced.

"Some men see things as they are and say why - I dream things that never were and say why not." George Bernard Shaw.

I can't really go with the premise of the question. Seems to me that prosecution is counterproductive if it gives Bush and Cheney a pass. How do you investigate Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, etc, without finding out where their orders came from?

We've always known that there are bad apples in any administration. The urgent need is to establish that being president or vice president increases, not mitigates criminal responsibility. This is precedent and history we're talking about here, not some petty revenge or political game.

FDR's response to progressive demands: "I agree. Now go out and make me do it."

The first thing, IMHO, is to negate all the Bush signing statements that contend that the President doesn't have to follow the laws that Congress passes and make it very clear that they'll never be used again in that manner.  Then there are a number of Executive Orders that should be reversed in order to bring back checks & balances as the Constitution requires.

One way or the other, this darkness has to give....

Here's my wish list.  (Everyone can play this game).

First, clean up DOJ.  Get to the bottom of everything that happened on Ashcroft and Gonzalez's watch.  Purge the criminals and the almost criminals to the extent legally possible.  My pick for USAG?  Patrick Fitzgerald.

Second: clean out Homeland Security.  This is a task of Augean Stables magnitude, but it has to be done, because it was a new agency and attracted more certified right-wing kooks than any other.  No candidate for the job, but it has to be someone prepared to wield a big club with a thick skin, and a President to cover his back.

Third: Interior.  This is another nest of thieves that has to be cleaned out.  These are places off the radar but just because of that they are rife with corruption.

Obviously the big three in the security area are Defense, State, the CIA and the FBI.  It goes without saying that these will have high priority.  I think, however, that they will actually be easier to fix than the first three I mentioned, because we will get a big turnover with the new administration, and there is a reservoir of professionals to draw on.  Also, the security angle gives the Pres some fairly strong levers to root out incompetents and sabotageurs.

As to Vice President.  Al Gore.  He's Obama's best life insurance policy.

Knut

On Bush: I'd settle for a commitment that if he were ever arrested on foreign soil that we would not resist or ask him to be returned and he could be tried. That is, in essence, confine Bush to United States territory for the rest of his days. It sucks for us, but we bare the blame for some of it too.

Otherwise I think it's key to purge the loyalists from top Departments and ESPECIALLY the Justice Department. We need to get people to have confidence in the system again.

I say let Fitzgerald and Edwards take a whack at fixing Justice and then selectively go after the others. And above ALL makes sure everything is not only above board, but transparent. Even when they don't have to release information on how they went about investigating, or testimony, as long as they legally can release it they should. That's the only way to fight back claims of political vengeance--make sure people can look for themselves at the information and see. That goes along with ramping down governmental secrecy and beating back the vile State Secrets doctrine. If people can see how our government operates, it will be far harder to demagogue.

Obama is not going to come into office and start indicting Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Tenet, etc. So, what is reasonable to expect?

I think the most important thing is to establish that there was a pattern of deception surrounding the Iraq War at the highest level (if there was - pure incompentency could still be at the root).  None of it will be strictly prosecutable, but it needs to be shown what exactly people knew and when.

(As an aside, BushCo. is likely to try and seal everything up with the Presidential Records act - what isn't shredded first.  Obama needs to have a team ready on Nov. 5 to move into the White House and watch what is going on.)

Farther down the list, anything that smacks of war profiteering should be pursued.  Anything that looks like lying to Congress should be pursued in cooperation with Congress.  I'm not sure what should be let go, really.

Whoever gets the Dem nomination first and formost must campaign for a much greater majority in both houses of Congress. If they don't get a stronger majority, NOTHING will take place. Just a continuation of what we have now. Were they to achieve that goal, I would suggest that the winner should focus on reinstaing citizen confidence in the structures that directly affect the public. hhs, cdc, fda, epa doe as examples. If, on the other hand, if the winner attempts to hold "public hangings", the media attacks will destroy any possibility of achieving success. We have seen what promises were made and what success was achieved after 06!
 

As much as I'm excited to have Obama as stand-bearer, I 'm nevertheless perplexed b/c it's likely to be one term

The shitpile of $trillions-  a financial meltdown awaits the next president.  I wouldn't wish this mess on on my worst, worst enemy.

Maybe Obama's ability to inspire may come in handy in the role of another FDR.

We avoid the doom and gloom but we can't escape when you read this in the WSJ:

FDIC to Add Staff as Bank Failures Loom

"Regulators are bracing for well over 100 bank failures in the next 12 to 24 months, with concentrations in Rust Belt states like Michigan and Ohio, and the states that are suffering severe housing-market problems like California, Florida, and Georgia," said Jaret Seiberg, Washington policy analyst for financial-services firm Stanford Group.

In job postings on its Web site, the FDIC said it is looking for people with "skill in performing duties associated with a financial-institution closing, such as receivership management, resolutions and/or asset disposition; knowledge of the resolutions process as it relates to complex financial institutions." Such positions would require "very frequent overnight travel," the posting said, and would pay up to $180,770.

Add another zero to that 100 figure. This is It and only the begining because the $52 billion fund is a drop in the bucket.

How safe is your bank.  You can forget that it's insured.

Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

The most important thing is that everything, and I mean everything, come out. That's why I've been calling for a Mandela-style truth commission since 2004. The important aspect of the truth commission is that its questions are completely open-ended. Not just "tell us what you know about such-and-such", but "tell us everything you know about illegal or potentially illegal activities by anyone connected to the administration". In exchange for this testimony, you get complete immunity for anything to which you confessed. If your testimony is found to have omissions, however, the immunity vanishes and your own testimony can be used against you. Want to claim memory loss? The commission gets to decide whether that's credible.

Obama himself should stay above the fray. Let the commission(s) be formed and pursue their leads. He should declassify everything he can, though, that should be his role; to offer access to the info, which is consistent with his position that government openness is not a liberal or conservative position (the hell it isn't, but the pretense has its uses).

It is not important to get the various Scooter Libby's in jail, and getting Bush and Cheney in jail is not in the cards. But bringing everything out would lead to a public demand for safeguards against this kind of BS. And I think it goes well beyond the DOJ or wiretapping stuff. Demuzzle Sibel. Let's hear more about the Repub congressman lobbying for the terrorist front.

What we must resist is any notion that covering things up is in the best interest of the country. That's the thinking that got us where we are now.