Assuming a Democrat becomes president in 2009 and the Democrats hold both house of Congress, how much time do you want to see dedicated to investigating the Bush administration and corruption (like the K Street Project)?
Do you want to see the country move forward and not dwell on the past?
Which candidate do you think will come closest to doing what you want?
I’d like to see a nongovernmental truth commission established, so the crimes could be delved into and exposed without taking precious time from the Congress and Senate re our agenda.
I think shame is all the punishment they’d ever get anyway. No one is going to jail George Bush, no matter the evidence. So why not lose the pretense, but really get to the bottom of all that transpired? The lessons learned might help us pass new legislation, or might tell us where to look sooner so we don’t have to wait seven years for impeachable evidence.
One reason I struggle to embrace Obama is that all his Kumbayah crap makes me think he’ll be more concerned with keeping Sally Quinn happy than in exposing the lies and the false history we’ve been fed. Edwards has that fight in him that I like.
over by Huffpost we may get a Bloomberg-Hagel team up.
Looks like he’s prepping while looking over the current crop offerings.
2008 promises to be very interesting, on every front.
i very much like the idea of a Truth commission. if guatemala and south africa can have theirs, why can’t the US. enough crimes have been committed.
i have this negative reaction whenever i see this business about ‘let’s moved forward and not dwell on the past’ sort of cr.p. that’s like asking an individual who has suffered abuse to forget all about it and “just move on” – it’s silly, it’s simplistic, and anybody with any psychological sense knows that’s not how the human psyche works. and a Nation has a psyche too. the past has to be reckoned with – that’s the whole point of having hearings and investigations – to find out what happened and why and who did what and what can be done to prevent these abuses and criminal activities in the future.
whether the demorats are going to be up to it or not is another question. and frankly from their behavior this year i am not optimistic at all, especially if obama or clinton get in. personally i prefer dodd, kucinich or edwards as president, they more closely fit my profile. edwards is talking some good populist talk and i like that a lot. after this past week, Dodd should be the majority leader…tomorrow
i can assure you there are going to be a lot of continuing investigations in europe and elsewhere in the world about renditions and torture etc, and a lot of these members of the current cheney administration are the future pinochets of the world – they are going to be restricted about where they can go overseas because they’ll be indicted and liable to arrest for their war crimes – it’s already happened with rumsfeld and kissinger. or at least someone in europe wanted to talk to them about what they knew and did…..
because I’d also like to know how many Dems also compromised themselves with sweetheart contracts from BushCo given to close relatives. This would involve Iraq and all sorts of other connections that might touch on unexplained murders, renditioning, faulty construction, drug trafficking and so forth. They would have to face jail time or be forced to make restitution.
Nobody’s hands are clean, understand? Not even our vaunted Dems. I don’t want these guys to go creeping back into the dark when the jig is up and then smile paternally about some other issue that we feel strongly about…and still do nothing about it.
As to which candidate – seriously, I’ll take any of them over any Republican, period. I’d rank the top three in this order of personal preference: Obama, Edwards, Clinton.
I think to move forward we must deal with the past, but I don’t see any candidates putting investigations high on their agenda.
And to be successful Democrats will have to get to sixty in the Senate. (Can’t remember what you wrote about that, but seems you didn’t think they’d make it).
we need nine.
Then…
For insurance
Do you think we can make it?
I’d like to see more legitimate races.
We’re getting close with the right breaks, but Mike Moore bowing out in Mississippi hurts, and we don’t have strong candidates in Georgia, Kansas, Wyoming, South Carolina, or Tennessee. And our candidate in Alabama is a real long-shot.
Don’t we need ten? Or better yet, eleven?
Can’t count on Lieberman. He’s the new Zell Miller.
true enough.
We need 60 in the Senate…or 51 Senators with enough balls to change the Senate rules. The republicans were willing to do it when it looked like they weren’t going to get their way with judicial nominees. I don’t know why the democrats don’t even mention it as a way to get more important things through.
I think we she set up a whole new branch of government, whose sole purpose is to fix the evil shit the Bush junta has done.
And I’m only half joking.
The “looking forward” meme is pure crap. Just putting a bandaid on an infected wound never does any good. We need to know how we got into this cesspool and how to get out. The American people need to know that we’re in deep and long-term trouble and need to rebuild from the foundations if we’re ever going to recover. We also need an object lesson on what happens to crooked, lying politicians, or the next ruling set will be even worse, irrespective of party.
As to which candidates, Kucinich or Dodd could probably be counted on Maybe Edwards. The rest, probably hopeless.
Richardson has called for war crimes trials.
Use the legislation and regulations the Republican Congresses and Bush have left for the next President to ensure domestic tranquility. I want to see every last Republican politician or official implicated in any of the scandals scooped up, hooded, dressed in bright orange jump suites, whisked away to Gitmo, photographed, dumped in solitaire and questioned. We don’t torture, but we also don’t just catch and release either. Let their own imaginations run riot as they imagine their fellow vermin rolling over on them when they can’t imagine the prospect of plenary pardons. I want every Republican voter to understand that it can happen to them, in a very personal way. We must do this. Simple game theory absolutely dictates it. Tit-for-tat is the only winning game strategy. It must be done.
I think there has to be a middle ground between what you suggest and glossing over all that’s happened.
Booman,
We know that catch & release doesn’t work, because all of the Iran-Contra criminals slithered back into government. They weren’t punished and the Chiquita-banana/guns & drugs & CIA crew don’t expect to be punished, either. All of the neocons bided their time and then sprang again like that hydra in the swamp. Warmongers sold other dictatorships chemical weapons; yet 2 decades later had those leaders hung like dogs for using them, while using chemical weapons themselves.
If they are swept up and escorted to our good buddies the Saudis and Egyptians and Moroccans for questioning and holding, it would still be too good for them. Everybody who tortured, enabled torture, authorized torture, signed off on torture, and wrote legalistic doctrines saying torture was justifiable when done by us holier-than-thou patriots needs to go to The Hague or another International Tribunal for trial. Then the guilty perverts (including Bush the Brander if the Secret Executive Orders come into daylight) can be dealt with by whatever vermin removal method is used by the Tribunal’s host country.
If the Japanese and Germans had to suffer penalties for war crimes, then surely Americans will suffer them, too.
Some of the Nazis thought they’d escaped the law by moving to South America, but decades later they’d relax vigilance and get renditioned. So Cheney will scoot back into private practice, and Halliburton is now in the Middle East. If he is working for a foreign company (and any company that moves headquarters off-shore to avoid taxes needs to be counted as foreign), and is caught on foreign soil, and brought into a foreign Tribunal, why would we interfere with Justice?
Embarrassment, you say?
Well, not impeaching him is more of an embarrassment since it shows the world that we are no longer living by our own laws.
And if we don’t, at the very least, vigorously investigate, prosecute when warranted, and convict when possible, every vile thing they have gotten away with all these years stands as precedent for the next crop of villains that comes along. We are now dealing with the adult machinations of the maggots that escaped scrutiny and extermination during Reagan’s tenure. Do we really want to leave their hatchlings to come back to haunt us in another generation? I don’t think so.
rhlisa has an excellent idea: a truth and reconciliation committee, with subpoena powers, accompanied by an independent counsel, and the power and authority to remand findings to the icc for prosecution with the new administrations’ support.
if we can’t convict them, let’s bankrupt them, and make their lives as unpleasant as possible.
as for the likelihood of that happening…meh.
clinton and obama are two sides of the same coin, business as usual with a demoRATic face…and frankly, l have very serious doubts about either of them being elected should either, or both, be on the ticket.
kucinich would be the most likely candidate to support and encourage such an endeavor, but, for many reasons, he’s also unelectable.
in order of preference, l would favor edwards, followed by dodd and richardson, who are the only three l could aggressively support. at this point in time, l’m very much in edwards camp, and it’s very likely that l will support him in the caucus in feb. l believe he offers the best opportunity to put the country on a track to recovery.
lTMF’sA
how much time do you want to see dedicated to investigating the Bush administration and corruption (like the K Street Project)?
as long as necessary
Conspiracy, obstruction of justice, war crimes, high crimes and misdemeanors? It will take an independent special prosecutor a presidential term or two to grub through the interminable list of wrongs done by people in this administration. We will not have our Constitution or our country back until we fully understand the monumental destruction they have wrought. We will remain an international pariah until we very publicly acknowledge and very forcefully repudiate the many evils they have done to our country and the world. I will not be satisfied until some of them stand in the Hague and answer for their crimes.
And if anyone imagines we can “move on” and pretend it never happened we are in worse shape than I thought.
Hell, we know they’re guilty right? In some cases, they admitted to such on broadcast TV. We know the answers we need. They know the answers we need. Let’s just “incentivize” them to provide the answers they know we need. Isn’t that the operating philosphy these days. Since so much of the judiciary is implicated as well, it shouldn’t be any problem getting the evidence admitted into court either. The judges will have plenty of incentive.
i agree. and we need many independent prosecutors. hey, if ken starr could keep busy for 5-7 years whatever the hell it was on minor piddling little cases like whitewater and white sex games (now that stuff was total entertainment n nothing more) imagine how long it would take to investigate and clean up the real Aegean Stables that america has become under the last 7 years+ of lawless republican rule.
I can’t see how the US’s standing overseas can possibly be ‘rehabilitated’ without a quick and just ending of the war in Iraq and a settling of the Palestinian issue (among many other things)
Do you want to see the country move forward and not dwell on the past?
moot.
Which candidate do you think will come closest to doing what you want?
moot
Play the video.
Impeach, impeach, impeach!!!!!
NOW
If there are no impeachments and removals, then we absolutely must prosecute and imprison those guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of our Constitution, as well as the lawyers who enabled it.
Otherwise we will not survive as a democratic republic but as a dictatorship loathed and feared and avoided by the rest of the world.
If nothing has changed by the time Bush leaves office, precedent will have been established that the President and his minions are above the law.
The only presidential candidate that I’d trust to get us out of illegal and constant warmongering, environmental crises, and restoration of our rights as citizens is… (you guessed it) Kucinich. He is the only one with courage of his convictions and the proper stand on most issues.
I’d accept Dodd as the nominee. He’s good on restoring the balance of powers. I’d accept Edwards as the nominee. He’ll help working class Americans, is sensitive to women’s rights, and isn’t afraid to tackle the lobbyists and corporations.
If Clinton is the nominee, I’ll write in Al Gore. I’ll not vote for a power-hungry empress who’ll continue the country’s present course into destruction-from-within. She pledged to stand with Dodd on the FISA Act… and decided that raising money was more important than doing her job or protecting citizens.
If Obama is the nominee, I’ll write-in Al Gore. What I’m fretting over is the drug use. If I blame Bush for being an alcoholic coke-head, then I can’t spare Obama. He was off fund-raising, too rather than standing in Congress and telling the Bush Administration that spying on Americans is illegal and unwarranted and against the Constitution.
If they don’t keep their promises now, they certainly won’t keep them later.
If they can’t do their current jobs, why promote them into more authority?
reading the comments and thinking about this some more, honestly if the democrats aren’t going to impeach them while the neo-cons in office, i don’t think much of anything is going to happen once they get out of office. simple as that.
and another factor is that if we had a real true Free Press that did its job and worked to check excessive and tyrannical power, it would all be different and just like in the blogosphere, they’d be clammoring for impeachment and justice, but there’s none of that in the mainstream – next to zip (olbermann comes to mind as an exception). i mean these guys got a first amendment guarantee, that’s how important the founders considered the role of the press, and still they don’t do their work properly (in spite of some great examples in their tradition).
Given that the Bush family, the Evangelicals & their neo-con friends are all BREEDERS; which gives them a better than 1% chance to invade the WH again, I’m all for doing some multi-tasking. It’s all hard work, there’s no instant gratification, but the only way to clean house is to clean house. The old adage that it’s a responsibility to leave behind better than you found, well, even Emily Post may have favored Impeachment at this point.