John Edwards for President — Leadership America can be proud of!

They can’t go after Bush for ordering torture because they were briefed on the torture and were A-OK with it and have remained mum on it since! Nailing Bush on grounds of illegal acts of torture means they are nailed too. Same with any financial illegalities: the Dems are feeding at the trough just as greedily and sloppily as the GOP and Bush/Cheney! Truly, not a single crime of the Bush Admin doesn’t in some way implicate at least some Dems in the same crime, or at the very least, similar crimes.

There is no impeachment possible because they entire Democrapic congress would also have to impeach themselves.

On Hardball last night, Matthews argued that torture worked; otherwise we wouldn’t do it; Terry Drumwiler (sp) tried to discredit that, but Matthews was in his usual pontificating mode and not listening.

Doesn’t Matthews make you want to throw things at the TeeVee? He won’t EVER shut up.

I don’t know whether to call the current onslaught of actions by the CIA an insurrection or the beginnings of a coup, but I do know that payback is a bitch!

It is NOT a dictatorship NOT to execute power (i.e., to refrain from a prosecution). It is a welcome LIMIT on the power of government to criminalize a political dispute which has destroyed too many Republics from Rome to France and Russia.

You seem to think that the United States IS a DICTATORSHIP already. We are a Republic “Liberty Lee” with a TRIPARTITE division of powers. In this case the when an Executive arbitrarily removes the authority and power of one, or both, of the other branches it is, in fact usurping the Power of the other two…destroying the checks and balances to its own power.

In this case of a blanket pardon that would protect members of its own Administration who violated laws (enacted by Congress) and judged as convictions by the Judicial Branch (by Judge and a Jury of Common Citizens)…the essential checks to tyrrany are removed.

I suggest you look at the Federalist Papers #69 I believe you’ll find some very interesting statements about the reasons that the Presidential power to pardon would be checked indirectly, by public opinion, and by Congress.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the King of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware…

Thirdly. The power of the President, in respect to pardons, would extend to all cases, EXCEPT THOSE OF IMPEACHMENT. The governor of New York may pardon in all cases, even in those of impeachment, except for treason and murder. Is not the power of the governor, in this article, on a calculation of political consequences, greater than that of the President?

All conspiracies and plots against the government, which have not been matured into actual treason, may be screened from punishment of every kind, by the interposition of the prerogative of pardoning. If a governor of New York, therefore, should be at the head of any such conspiracy, until the design had been ripened into actual hostility he could insure his accomplices and adherents an entire impunity.

A President of the Union, on the other hand, though he may even pardon treason, when prosecuted in the ordinary course of law, could shelter no offender, in any degree, from the effects of impeachment and conviction. Would not the prospect of a total indemnity for all the preliminary steps be a greater temptation to undertake and persevere in an enterprise against the public liberty, than the mere prospect of an exemption from death and confiscation, if the final execution of the design, upon an actual appeal to arms, should miscarry? Would this last expectation have any influence at all, when the probability was computed, that the person who was to afford that exemption might himself be involved in the consequences of the measure, and might be incapacitated by his agency in it from affording the desired impunity?

PUBLIUS.

Mukasey may have a conflict of interest problem already, and may have to call upon a Special Prosecutor.

Jose Padilla’s lawyers argued before the Florida Federal Court that Abu Zubaydah was tortured into saying Padilla was an al Qaeda associate. The DOJ dismissed Padilla’s allegations as “meritless,” asserting Padilla’s legal team could not prove that Abu Zubaydah had been tortured. Well, it’s clear now that they certainly COULD have, if the tapes of the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah had been made available!

Now here is where Mukasey’s role comes into question. U.S. District Judge Mukasey, now attorney general, was the one who signed the warrant used by the FBI to arrest Padilla in May 2002. Court records show the warrant relied in part on information obtained from Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation. So we have a problem Houston.

The Attorney General can only issue a warrant based upon legally obtained evidence, and confessions under torture are certainly not “legally obtained”. So either Mukasey was misrepresented the evidence, and would be liable to be potentially a party in those who were presented with “perjured evidence”; or he knew that torture was used in obtaining the confession and ignored it.

In either case he is unsuitable to run an investigation, as it will, inevitably, involved himself. Thus a Special Prosecutor is necessary.