Why the Democrats choose to let Bush and Repubs off the hook?

[kentuck]

Whether it's about Karl Rove testifying before Congress without being under oath or letting the telecoms off the hook for breaking the laws by spying on Americans, Democrats are criticized by fellow Democrats and leave many scratching their heads. Why?

They seem to be under the illusion that they can always have a "new start" at bi-partisanship. Once they are in power, then everything will be different. Just as Bill Clinton in 1993 refused to pursue the Iran-Contra connections to George Bush Sr. It was time for a "new start" and not to dwell on the past. Look what happened to Bill Clinton in a show of appreciation.

Of course, they tell themselves it is about "national security". We need the big telecoms to help us. We need the information that Karl Rove might have about the Valerie Plame affair. The truth of the matter is that we don't really need either of those. We need justice more than we need a cover-up. We need the truth more than we need "bi-partisanship" with the Republican Party.

It is better that they do nothing than to make such despicable deals with the Republican Party. We need more investigations. We need more subpoenas. We need more Congressmen and Senators to pursue the truth and less "making friends" with criminals.

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. One word: Co-conspirator

If the Junta is found guilty of war crimes, treason and other criminal activities, ALL of their co-conspirators -- which includes a great many of the Democrats in Congress -- will also face punishment. Therefore, Congress does what it can to avoid having the Junta even charged.

[msongs]

2. exactly - dems are complicit. when u vote to fund/support iraq u cannot criticize effectively nt

[PATRICK]

3. Your very last sentence

should be the lead off thought with many of the critical posts today concerning the current Congressional picture, defined pretty well before the 2006 elections by the slate the party offered in the current wisdom and power structure of that time. Back then, any real thought that the future Dem Congress would stop the war, etc, etc, etc, was easily forecast as doomed to disappointment. Each compilation of the inevitable has not made such grim wisdom any more palatable.

In the aftermath of a crushing war defeat and occupation, a nation is forced to do a radical about face it would have behooved democratic forces to accomplish before all the trouble. We would be getting off cheap, even with the spectacular crimes and losses of the past 8 wasted years to start that same path.

First, for the future that makes sane, responsible and clear-headed legislation possible we need the simple steps: effective, all sweeping campaign finance reform, media reform. Remove the money insanity that clogs Congressional arteries with rich, beholden to rich interests representatives who at the their most admirable must be schizophrenic or weirdly eccentric to act on the "public service" model sold to the public and essential for national survival. Remove the blinders of decadent media owned by fairly mindless corporate interests and one-dimensional single owners.

That is the opportunity, the gateway to just get started being what the Constitution and the popular myths say we are(and maybe have not been yet).

Then, taking a deep breath we can get started. In that time it may be impossible or at the least long delayed and imperfect to get at the crimes or the damage down in the past and thus all their threat to the future. There will be no silence certainly TRYING to get sane performance out of the current party leadership mixture. Nor will there be a lack of disaffection that even basic things cannot get done, much less shot down by the Bush SCOTUS these people let in.

The excitement and drama of greed and fascist glory, the pugilistic self-affliction that is all so unnecessary and a threat to humankind can be ended. The hangover follows. The dissatisfaction with responsibility and human limitation lingers, cooperation with all just interests strains against competitive reality and hatred has nowhere to go.

There is no cure, no surrender, no victory for any of this but the perspective of truth and certainly no punishment in this world to match the scale of crimes committed. For those of us believing in the judgment of a God rather than the bland eye of far removed generations, letting the crooks off the hook is delegating the negative to a more perfect retribution.

Nothing however can even get started until we win the future and that future is not won by new faces in
DC but by law and new ideas, and surgical excision of the most corrupting influences of irrational, morally destructive money. Meanwhile let the truth cast a harsh light to grow these new seeds out of the old corruption. Our party has been, as all history shows for all competitive factions, tragically more won over to the "winning" ways of the corruption that beat them so that victory becomes the new hollow thing their dominant rivals intend for them always. bad, wrong, seduced choices made all the worse for being chosen by "pragmatic" good people. If you carry that over into the power and privilege and money control that a dominant Congressional party wins you will have a new race between inner corruption and new reform.

We could lose not just the cause of justice for the vipers plotting profit and a return but our own party. We have to keep it all in view and move on the first cause of danger to all. Get the money and media private interest crap out of politics. Under even the future shadow of that great scythe things can change now for the better and in fact are only insofar as it begins to be felt.

[kentuck]

4. If they are more content with regaining power than defending our Constitution...

then we all lose. The end game should not be about who has the majority and who sits in the White House. If they are there to simply put their finger in the dike until the next criminal takes charge, then that is not worthy of respect. It is not about "partisan" politics- it is about the rule of law and our Constitution. I don't really give a rat's ass if Harry Reid is the Majority Leader just so he can be the Majority Leader. I want more from our Democratic Party.

[PATRICK]

5. You won't get enough

from the current mix of leadership. A new wave of candidates(including my own district's Eric Massa, NY-29) are more likely to do the right thing and coincidentally more dependent on the citizen contributor. That will help but the mix won't change, ironically, if the victory is so strong that private interest incumbents have safer seats after. They will change if the underpinnings of corporate Dem power get removed.

We will still have conservative Dems and in certain issues, substantial disagreement where the GOP has little of none. For that sane world to evolve though will take more than this election cycle. A real sea change will be in reforms profoundly effecting the NEXT election cycle.

[kentuck]

6. It would require...

massive suffering on the part of the American people before any change of significance will happen, in my opinion. Or the political heat gets so hot that the politicians have no choice, much like the Black movement of the 1960's. The political establishment would say, "OK, it's time to give the people universal healthcare", if the rumblings became too loud. Only out of necessity will they give up any of their power over the peons.

[wyldwolf]

7. without entering into another long discussion on this topic...

... I'm sure all will agree what Bush the dumber has done is far worse than anything his dad did.

How long will it take you (in general) to abandon Obama if he doesn't hold this administration "accountable?"

[Butch350]

8. 7. without entering into another long discussion on this topic...

And just how is he suppose to do that? Hold them accountable?

[wyldwolf]

10. oh, I don't know. How was Clinton supposed to hold Bush I accountable? Yet...

...that's one of the big whines about Clinton on the left. He didn't hold them accountable.

[kentuck]

9. The problem lies more with a happy and fat Congress and Senate...

"We need more Congressmen and Senators to pursue the truth and less "making friends" with criminals."