You buy a new house. You remove the bag of trash rotting in the basement

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

so that you will have a clean, fresh, start.

If you don't, you'll have the still rotting garbage that isn't yours, plus the ever increasing bugs and stink that will eventually ruin your new house.

[babylonsister]

1. I think that's all that's been happening. What if there

are so many bags of rotting trash in the basement, you don't know where to start? You just dig in and keep tossing.

[Fovea]

4. the rotting carpet from the previous owner

the wet sawdust from where the saw was.

You gotta do it sometime, now is better than later.

[Wapsie B]

2. Oh, just one bag? Lucky you!

[leftofthedial]

3. DO NOT LANCE THAT INFECTED, PUS-FILLED BOIL!

Just leave it alone and don't embarrass yourself by letting anyone see it, especially the doctor! What would he think?

[Sanity Claws]

5. Do you open it to see what kind of trash is inside?

Or do you just quickly put it out for curbside pickup?

[Quantess]

6. What if there's a dead body in the bag?

Do you just throw it out, or do you see to it that justice is served?

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. Dead bodies are very inconvenient. It means that you have to call the cops

even though you'd much rather just put it out by the curb.

[tridim]

8. Prosecuting a former administration isn't as simple as tossing the trash in a dumpster.

This is reality.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. I think it could be as simple as appointing an independent counsel

There's certainly enough in the public record to justify that.

[Occam Bandage]

13. Then what?

Suppose BushCo has covered its tracks as well as it did in the Plame affair. (I'd imagine that they'd do a better job, in fact, given that the Plame leak was a hastily-engineered response to a NYT op-ed by Joe Wilson, and torture was carefully planned and deliberately implemented).

Suppose there are months of speculation: rampant speculation, as no President has ever been investigated after leaving office. Suppose the independent counsel finally decides that there isn't enough evidence to prosecute and drops the case. Now we've got a long, costly, fruitless "witch hunt" on our hands--one that exposed exactly as many convictions for crimes as McCarthy exposed actual Communists. I couldn't imagine a more damaging result. (Actually, I can: if there is a prosecution and the jury rules 'not guilty.')

Before Obama publicly appoints an independent counsel, he damn well better make sure he knows there will be a conviction at the end of the tunnel. Because if an Obama-appointed investigation fails, well, he might as well just grow a bill and feathers, break one of his legs, and float around on a pond quacking.

[Canuckistanian]

Well, of course. But then when is your garbage day?

Since it's a new place, you're not sure when the garbage gets picked up.

Then you have to keep it around until you can find out when you can leave it out.

If you just leave it outside all the time, the animals will tear it apart and then you have a BIGGER mess to clean.

[ksoze]

10. Not sure I would parade the trash to everyone in the world though

[NYC_SKP]

11. Unless they kinda knew there was trash in your basement. Then....

Then you might want to make it fairly clear that you were taking care of business.

[Occam Bandage]

12. We did. We no longer torture.

Nowhere in that analogy do you photograph the garbage and distribute pictures of it to all your neighbors. It is a silly analogy, and one that doesn't serve the situation well.

[Phx_Dem]

14. With respect, that analogy doesn't work for legal issues.

The law his much more complex than taking out the trash. But while you're talking about "garbage rotting and stinking up our basement," let's not forget that Cheney and Rove got off scott free for the reprehensible crime of outing a covert CIA agent. And I can still smell that stench.

Doesn't that piss you off? Well it pisses me off too. A lot. But that's too bad because the people involved lied and obstructed the investigation, so they couldn't be prosecuted. The prosectuor was one of best, but he was unable to get the whole truth from the liars.

I'm also still pissed that OJ Simpson got off scott free for butchering two people even though there was enough evidence against him convict him 10 times over. But again, that's too bad. Sometimes even though we go through the legal motions, justice is not served. That's what happened with Abu. It came to light, it was investigated, a few people were prosecuted and sent to prison while a whole lot more people lied, obstructed and got off scott free.

We do, however, have a great big old torture scandal unfolding with new evidence coming out every day. I'd prefer to focus my ire on something that actually has a chance of being investigated rather than something that WILL NEVER be reinvestigated.