Let the investigations begin

November 18, 2006

Guest Post by Michael J.W. Stickings

Congress under the Democrats will likely (and hopefully) be an investigative body as much as a legislative one. The legislative agenda is impressive — a minimum wage increase, stem-cell research funding, lobbying reform, etc. — but we’ve been waiting a long time for the truth about the abuses of the Bush Administration to come out once and for all. And in the Senate, a particularly egregious area of abuse is about to be exposed:

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated.

The CIA recently acknowledged the existence of the documents in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The first is a directive President Bush signed giving the CIA authority to establish detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees.

The second is a 2002 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA’s general counsel regarding interrogation methods that the spy agency may use against al-Qaeda leaders.

I wonder what choice words Cheney has for Leahy now. (Or what he’ll say when the Democrats venture to uncover the truth about Halliburton.) As they say, what goes around…

Are you going to spend the next two (I hope only two) years salivating?

  • It’s important that the truth come to light so that people understand why our system of checks and balances matter, and why demanding accountability is not necessarily partisan politics. It’s important that people see the just how far BushCo was willing to go and how deep their disregard for the law. And it’s important for people to understand how the rubber stamp, do-nothing republican Congress enabled Bush to run wild like an undisciplined child.

    I don’t care what Cheney has to say to Leahy, but I certainly hope history puts Cheney in his proper place as a traitor to the principles that the nation was founded upon.

  • Actually,I’m going to spend the next two years printing out your chicken-scratchings, Fallenwoman, and I’ll be able to save all kinds of money on toilet paper purchases.

    You’re even more pathetic than most wingnuts.

  • Good for Leahy. Hopefully, going after those papers will prove less of impossibility than following Cheney’s suggestion.

    Are you going to spend the next two (I hope only two) years salivating? — Fallenwoman, @1

    That’s two *months*, dear, three at most. After that it’s gonna be like rege (@3) says: crunch, chew, digest, absorb what’s nutritious and let the rest out at the other end of the digestive track.

    And, at the end of those two years of nourishing smorgassboard, you’ll have so many prison visits to make (hope you’ll take home-baked cookies with you), you won’t have the time to troll here.

  • If there’s anything damaging to the administration in those documents (or any others that will be subpoenaed) then they won’t be released at anything less than gunpoint. The reason we are headed to impeachment is that will be the only thing that will budge Cheney and his criminal gang.

  • I’m hoping the Halliburton investigation brings Cheney down. Corruption crashed the career of the crapulous alliterative Agnew after all.

  • I am more interested in the restoration of our civil rights, habeus corpus, the end of torture and secret torture prison camps, the end of domestic spying by our own government and some restoration of our image of decency around the world. It would be nice to have real statesmen instead of Bush croney appointments to the UN, and security at our borders.
    I agree with JimBob, investigations will lead to impeachment because this government will not cooperate except at gunpoint. Holding people up is the only method they seem to understand.

  • Good for Leahy. Hopefully, going after those papers will prove less of impossibility than following Cheney’s suggestion. Libra, post #5

    Actually, it’s only impossible if trying to use the real thing. Fortunately, they now make “Clone-a-Willy” kits, one of which could be handed to Cheney as you said it. 😉

  • I am more interested in the restoration of our civil rights, habeas corpus, the end of torture and secret torture prison camps, the end of domestic spying by our own government and some restoration of our image of decency around the world. — Marilyn, @9

    All roads lead to Rome (or Cheney)…

  • ***Are you going to spend the next two (I hope only two) years salivating?***
    —————————–Fallen-and-can’t-get-up-Woman.

    And in your case, help is NOT on the way. The Rage of Investigatory War, however, is.

    Cheney vs. Blitzkreig. Place your bets, gentlemen. Place your bets….

  • Not quite such an exciting investigation but the GAO has released a report on government-funded abstinence only programs. As always the agency would like to know what became of all that cash: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061117/hl_nm/family_planning_dc

    Ladies and gents, our asses might be saved, not by Congress, not by the Supreme Court, but by the GAO. They follow the money. They ask embarassing questions. They don’t go away. All hail the accountants and the number crunchers!

  • “Are you going to spend the next two (I hope only two) years salivating?” – Fallenwoman

    Wow! Do you even remember how the Republican’ts behaved during the Clinton administration.

    You have a lot of nerve to suggest that America, after all the Republican’t and Bushite corruption and incompetence, doesn’t want and deserve these investigations.

  • And I certainly hope our legal system puts Cheney in his proper place as a traitor – at the end of a hangman’s rope

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