History

Those would be the same people who after every horrendous failure of BushCo said “let’s not play the Blame Game. Now is not the time to point fingers. What’s done is done.” “It doesn’t matter why we invaded Iraq, we’re there now & we have to work with that” “It does no good to blame anyone for the waters breaching the levees after Katrina. We have to deal with the situation now and move on”. The time for placing blame & holding people accountable and analyzing what was & wasn’t done correctly has never come for these people. There has been little to no introspection, no taking – or apportionment – of responsibility…and now the argument is that it’s too late, those things happened in the past, they’re history, let’s move on.I want BLAME passed out to the appropriate parties & I want consequences for actions meted out & I want safeguards put into place so that these things do not happen again. Let’s point some fingers, for a change!

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

I really enjoyed your post frankly. It was a more concise version of my sputtering and arm flinging that usually results from someone I know suggesting that Obama is going to screw the country up or that Bush was not as bad as I make him out to be. I had this argument over the holidays with members of my family. Every time they would make some stupid, O’Reilly-Limbaugh-Hannity inspired comment, I would counter with some horrible thing Bush did. The response was always something like, “I’m not comparing one wrong to another. What’s done is done, and I think history will prove you wrong about Bush,” or “You want change? Obama’s certainly going to bring that–in ways you can’t imagine or understand right now and you will regret it.”That’s a little off-point, but it was part of an overall argument where I simply could not understand how they could not understand what a phenomenally horrible eight years it has been.Oh, and inevitably the horrible 90s Clinton years would come up! When I would try to ask how those years of peace and prosperity were horrible whether you like Clinton or not, the answer was the same–It’s a matter of perspective. Bullshit! Just like with Bush, this is not a perspective issue. Laws were broken. People have suffered and are suffering. Who sees that as good. Republicans have trained the followers to believe that everything is configurable including history and reality itself.

Kat is right. If we allow everyone to forget what the Bush has done for the past eight years, and the Republicans for the past thirty, we’ll slip into complacency over the next eight and watch in horror as the Republicans somehow manage to win the next election on the idea that “Bush wasn’t that bad” and ” Center-Right America likes to have two different parties in charge.”While we’re busy forgetting the truth, they’ll be busy rewriting history to allow them another chance to fuck it all up again.

I agree that the Obama Administration cannot spend energy attempting to prosecute all the misdeeds of the Bush White House. He can send his Attorney General to find things that were clearly against the law and bring the appropriate people to justice.This does not mean that we need back down from indicting Bush on every war crime, every lie, every misdeed, every coercion. We must NEVER forget, and never let our children and our childrens children think that this President was anything more than a charlatan and a warmonger who left our country dead upon the spear of neoconservatism.Hell, it took a TV man to bring Nixon down a peg or two YEARS after he left office.

BOB, KEEP TELLING THE TRUTH AND WATCH THE WORMSSQUIRM

Can you imagine anyone from the MSM actually talking to Bush as though he were accountable for, you know, anything? Like Candi Jabba the Crowley giving Bush nothing short of the most foul reach-around in exit interviews.Bush needs to go on The Daily Show after he leaves office. Let Stewart have a whack at that bastard.

As long as “the decider” continues to be in denial, lacking any remorse for his actions, I say rub his nose in it like a bad puppy who pissed in the corner.They continue to display no compunction for their crimes and constantly try to rewrite history. People should continue to be reminded until these criminals are prosecuted.Investigate, prosecute and hang ‘em high!

Bob – NEVER STOP GIVING THEM HELL!We can NEVER have enough TRUTH!!!!

Right on Bob. You even mentioned the Military Commissions Act(!!!) which I thought was 100 times worse than the PATRIOT Act. You forgot to mention the “Go shopping” quote – that would be relevant in today’s economy.No need to move forward on Bush. I say he needs to be hounded and closely watch because when you look at it, everything he did was to the benefit of AQ, leading me to believe that since daddy Bush started that organization with $250 million of our money, that it just might be the cash cow for the Carlyle Group, et. al.If that’s the case, then the Republicans need to merely pull the trigger on the next wave of terrorist attacks to “prove’ that Obama cannot keep them safe. This is why I’m okay with Obama’s FISA vote: he has to power to do something GOOD with it. Instead of spying on Americans, he can spy on terrorists, of whom, according to Noam Chomsky, Bush is the biggest terrorist in the world.Hard not to agree with Chomsky.

Seems pretty simple to me: If we ignore it, it will go away. With congressional (including democratic) complicity, the people in power will do whatever it takes – including nothing – to stay in power and hide their crimes.

The few true patriots left that are pushing to hold people accountable are/will be labeled as malcontents and summarily dismissed. Sad, isn’t it?

I am afraid that even our best efforts to place factual information into the history books will still result in Bush coming out smelling like a rose. Yes, I want to move on but the steaming mountains of shit that Bush has left Obama won’t go away that soon. More than anything, I want my country back but the record of what Bush did to the world, country, states, communities, families, friends and myself must be accurate. Not Halperianed.

Um… I recall ‘just ignore them and they’ll go away’ being the most useless piece of playground advice I ever received. It doesn’t work. Sure we can ignore the the Hannitys, the Limbaughs (and I’m pretty sure he might actually be plural- many lesser blowhards combined by some accident of fate or possibly a transporter malfunction), etc, but they won’t stop talking.I’m sure there were plenty of people on our side wanting to take “the high ground” and ignore the wingnuts back in the 90s… And look how it worked out. Especially since our side was too busy looking good and being above the fray, they were the only ones doing the talking. They’re not going to stop and neither should the white hats at Team Goddamn Awesome. Go, I say, go!

Unfortunately, I don’t think anything will happen even if a commission or special prosecutor is appointed. Too many top Democratic officials will be implicated as well. Look what happened after Watergate.The most important reason to me, however, for us not to move on, is the issue of precedence. Bush/Cheney shredded the Constitution and the Geneva Convention which was written at our instigation! They separated the powers so much, that Congress was useless, and they lay back and didn’t say a word.Now, they’re all saying bi-partisanship, and tax cuts to appease the Republicans. Why? Didn’t they lose? We must pursue transparency on what happened in the White House and Justice Dept. What happened regarding torture and rendition, and somehow, come up with a way to reassure the country and the world that we will honor our Constitution and the Geneva Convention.

I don’t think anything will happen even if a commission or special prosecutor is appointed…Look what happened after WatergateWhat? Criminals like Colson & Hunt & Liddy got sent to prison? Isn’t that what we want?

CEU: Absolutely, at least, that’s what I want. But despite the mood of the country, within months, the Church and Pike Commissions had become politicized. There was no real institutional change other than the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which as we all know, hasn’t done much overseeing. Many in this Congress said not a word against Bush for 8 years and thus will do everything they can to avoid their own accountability.