But overall, the tone of the debate was quite good, and I appreciate it!

Bob in HI

Yes, he was; and not just on that to which you refer, but as well on the issue of whether as AG Holder seems likely to impose the dramatic reforms necessary to build the DoJ anew – as opposed to the bureaucratic equivalent of triage & HMO-quality rehab that-at best-aims at getting the DoJ back to acting like more like it did in the 1990s.

they’ll need time to dig on many of the scandals, tho some are facing those statutes, tis true. that will be tricky. especially since bush’s bushies were kind enough to leave all those moles, making it hard to get things done without the players learning about the details in and untimely fashion.

bmaz was right (that was you, right?) this is a cancer on the republic. but it is so terribly rare that a cancer can be cleanly excised. most are messy, spidery things that require great care, patience, and focus.

my point at 38 was only about what mary said at 20, clearly out of a context that went on from there to develop in a quite different direction than i was assuming.

the substance of my point remains, but sorry to get derailed of the thrust of the debate.

though perhaps not on legal terms, but political ones.

even though all these guys supposedly serve at the pleasure of the prez, what kind of presidential message would it send to come into office and just take a broad swipe at everything on the table, and off it goes?

some might say that looks presidential, but it doesn’t look that democratic. even if it is his legal authority, and even if the majority of the country elected him. this would be impolitic. and the prez is not just about doing what is legal; s/he is about doing what is polite, as well.

this seems to me the enormous difference between bush and obama. bush and his cronies made sure what they did was legal so they could use the loopholes to do what they want. to hell with polite; they just wanted that power. obama by contrast recognizes that kind of behavior is precisely what the american people voted OUT of power in november.

we keep having this same debate here. but really, think about the message it would send if obama came in and signed a stack of exec orders to undo his predecessor. and trust me, i nursed that very fantasy and made a list of those orders. helped me sleep at night. but such action now would not really bring me comfort, even if obama did exactly what i wanted him to do. and this was MY fantasy! it would be dictatorial, and not democratic.

oddly, i’m reminded of the very reason i voted against hillary, though i have adored her forever. besides the fact that i seriously doubted she could win, if she had, it would have been bush clinton bush clinton for at least a quarter century. that’s dynasty, not democracy.

that’s the sort of thinking i’m talking about here, avoiding the impolitic, avoiding the undemocratic, even the appearance of undemocratic. really glad to see obama is so sensitive to it.

I do note, however, responses from others that suggest this discussion might have lapsed into abstraction, so I’m going to suggest [yet another tiresome, experience-based, boring old real world] scenario.

First: Consider the office titles of the dead-enders whose names and offices appear for the USG side in the latest pleadings; some of them are quite definitely not career schlubs, but are either appointees or latent genetic tendencies rendered active in the service of Bush policies.

Next: Consider the great number & diversity of the interests somehow represented in their appearance: FBI, NSA, Homeland Security, Counter-Terrorism, telecommunications liaison, US Postal Service, Customs, State, Treasury [IRS], & on & on. The number of fingers in the USG “Intelligence Community” & “national security” pies is truly staggering, & each of them is attached to some official or officials with her or his own bureaucratic empire interest to offer up & protect & grow, such that the logistics of just convening a single meeting where all of them attend & get their 2 cents in approach the impossible.

Third: We know from a number of other exposes on how the Bush-Cheney gang did their work that they crashed around like bulls in a china shop, going where they wanted without regard to the interests of any government agency or association beyond their own, leave aside the greater interest of the American people, such that it is not merely likely, but overwhelmingly so, that at several stages of the operation that ensnared al Haramain & at several more in the government response to the al Haramain lawsuit, Bushie interests, both cold-eyed & hot-headed, barreled right over protocol & by that created otherwise avoidable, unnecessary risks to some number of USG programs that weren’t even directly involved, and quite possibly have no muck at all on them but for being co-opted in some short-sighted attempt by the dead-enders to wriggle off the hook of this lawsuit.

Eventually someone [emphasis one] has to make decisions about where to go & how far, someone not carrying the burden of suspicion of Bushism, & thus at the very least someone who has not previously been read into all aspects of this clusterf**k – - because I very much doubt the combination of Cheney, McConnell & other departed demi-gods of the Bush underworld left behind any such animal.

More than once now Cheney, on the pretext of the Legacy Tour, has been reported as urging Obama not to dismantle the parts of what he clearly would like us all to understand is the Bush national security blanket – - while I keep hearing a little person in my head saying:

He’s lied before & indeed is obviously lying here about so much else: Why isn’t he up to mischief on top of mischief here? Machiavellian Desk Flying 101 is, after all, divide to conquer; what if the only persons who know the the full picture are psycho Dick & the irretrievably compromised McConnell? Would that create problems in even getting a handle on this before going to the new president with options?

Of course. Would you expect otherwise?

But when you make it you also need to address the increasing list of Obama nominees who are now saying not only that we shouldn’t charge (or even investigate as Panetta has claimed) torturers, and the fact patterns presented by situations like the Binyam Mohamed case. Bc there the “he doesn’t have people in place” (if that is your argument?), falls.

I wonder if you are ignoring the distinction between those who implement the torture policy, and those who formulated it?

IIRC, I think Holder said that he won’t go after the former, but may go after the latter.

In Nuremburg terms, I don’t think those who implemented the policy are off the hook. But perhaps Holder is going to let other parties pursue their adjudication.

Thanks for your many contributions on this thread.

Bob in HI