What exactly is President Obama getting from the republicans for not investigating

[wiggs]

and prosecuting high officials from previous administration? Certainly the case can be made for all kinds of crimes and misdeeds from W's White House. There's a list a mile long of ethical and legal breaches or at least the appearance of significant wrong-doing.

This should be a bargaining chip, moving forward. Right?

In exchange, is Obama getting real bipartisanship? Some cooperation in health care? Some cooperation on the economy? Cessation of smearing and lying at every opportunity?

The same goes for congress. They have investigative power. For looking the other way on WH and republican misdeeds they get...what?

[SoCalDem]

1. Death threats from their constituents

:(

[mamaleah]

2. A brazillion dollars which they then send to some of us to unrec threads.

Seriously, we have bigger issues to deal with. Health care, unemployment....yeah thats what most people worry and care about right now. We need to fix things that are having an impact on most of our citizens first.

[wiggs]

5. Yes...we do have bigger issues, which is exactly why no bargaining chip

should be taken off the table.

[mamaleah]

6. I'd rather have the President trying to fix some of our bigger issues first.

Because going after Bush and his ilk isn't going to fix health care or give people jobs. I know the ideologically pure care very little for the common man's problems, but someone has to.

[Pharaoh]

11. Because 911 was the excuse

for 2 illegal wars and a multitude of crime, that's why we are in this mess in the 1st place . It is the cause of this mess , not to mention both his elections were likely stolen!!!

[wiggs]

7. Almost every week we hear more about how badly the previous WH abused

it's power. Things we suspected were true turn out to have a paper trail in books or FOIA releases. Serious, if not criminal, abuse of power. While we do have other large problems it simply cannot be said that these abused are small or insignicant issues. In any other scenario, they would be huge problems to be dealt with. We're not talking about esoteric, technical, antiquated ginned-up charges. We're talking about torture, spying on Americans, political prosecution of Americans, lying into war, bribing congressmen, etc etc.

We shouldn't prosecute for political reasons. We shouldn't avoid prosecution for political reasons either.

[immoderate]

9. Yes but the Justice Department isn't busy with health care and unemployment.

There will always be a reason to kick this down the road until they can say it's too late.

--imm

[sabrina 1]

10. And that's what we were told for the past several elections

Is this country incapable of dealing with law-breakers while taking care of the country's business at the same time? That makes zero sense. Why have laws then? There will and always have been big issues to take care of. We manage to prosecute just about everyone else. Our jails are filled with people. What is different about those in elected office?

They must love it, these criminals, that Democrats buy into this nonsense that they can break every law and we will let them off the hook because either there's an election coming up or 'we have better things to do'.

Sorry, but that's utter nonsense.

[asdjrocky]

20. So, then you're saying they are going to start dealing with health care..

and unemployment? When are they going to do that?

[Democrats_win]

3. But, are we moving forward? Maybe it's his innocence.

I don't really get why he doesn't proceed. He's my age so he surely knows how Nixon was not prosecuted and how this emboldened Reagan to commit his Iran-Contra treason. The lesson from Watergate was that Republicans need to hide their crimes better. The lesson from the Clinton impeachment and Obama's inaction is that Republicans can get away with the biggest crimes in American history.

[flyarm]

18. nahhhhhhhhhhh..

see this thread..According To Rep. Louise Slaughter, the WH asked that the torture photos be kept hidden.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6805557&mesg_id=6805557

[Taverner]

4. His life

Just remember the last time someone seriously went after the CIA: Kennedy.

Kerry went after them with Iran Contra, but remember most of the prosecutions were of folks not in "the company" and they were all pardoned on Xmas anyway. And we know how Kerry's campaign turned out.

[jwirr]

8. Hopefully it is something we really want.

[spanone]

12. zagnut bars, i have a source.

[Laelth]

13. I don't know, but I have a theory.

It's called the "peaceful transfer of power." I believe that various people were threatened with martial law (i.e. a coup, the destruction of the facade of the democratic republic) if they didn't agree to 1) bail out AIG and the banks, and 2) promise not to prosecute high-level members of the Bush administration for fairly obvious treason.

That may have been the price we paid to secure the peaceful transfer of power. FYI, only the UK has been peacefully transferring power for a longer period of time than the US. We're quite proud of this tradition.

Personally, I think the French may be right, here. They're on their fifth republic. They're not terribly enamored of the "peaceful transfer of power." Perhaps Jefferson was right. "Every generation needs a new revolution."

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/every_generation_needs_a_new_revolution/225819.html

:dem:

-Laelth

[AllentownJake]

17. You have that

and you also have the fact that President Obama is going to have his own administration with his own scandals. Going after the previous administration sets up a precedent you may not want to live with.

[flyarm]

14. he is in the White House..n/t

[ipaint]

15. quid pro quo.

"As political scientists have documented, one hallmark of tin-pot tyrannies is the belief that political leaders should be liberated from the constraints of law as long as that helps to achieve good results. That's the defining mentality of those who crave benevolent tyrants -- our Leaders have so many Good and Important Things to do for us that they can't be distracted and weighed down by abstract luxuries like upholding the rule of law. That's now clearly the prevailing consensus of our political establishment.

...But our political establishment venerates "centrism" and "bi-partisanship" as the highest religious concepts. Those terms are, in reality, nothing more than vehicles to insulate government officials and the political establishment generally from any accountability. Their only real meaning is that cooperation within the political establishment is paramount, regardless of political principles and the rule of law. Hence, investigations and especially prosecutions are scorned as terribly divisive and partisan, even when they involve crimes; good "non-partisans" and "centrists" eschew such unpleasantries, by definition."


http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/13/partisanship/

[flyarm]

16. see this thread..According To Rep. Louise Slaughter, the WH asked that the torture photos be hidden

see this thread..According To Rep. Louise Slaughter, the WH asked that the torture photos be kept hidden.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=6805557&mesg_id=6805557

[sam sarrha]

19. ....probably he gets to keep breathing.