The perfect is the enemy of the good.

Bush, Cheney et. al, have, by their rhetoric, debased and largely destroyed valuable words like ‘freedom.’ These words were our common heritage, now we have to look for synonyms, our thoughts and ability to express has been crippled.

the term “Liberal” has been debased by all the right-wing hatemongers, now it is tactical to say ‘Progressive.’

so, what gets my guff about Obama? I think he is doing the same thing to valuable, useful words like ‘hope’ and ‘change’ when in reality he represents the status quo, more managerial, with better branding.

those words will be tarnished amongst those who believed the hype, as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, as he has promised, and the innumerable other betrayals in store. Single-payer health care? Ha! Precluded by another 8 years of a corporate controlled, DLC, neo-con Democratic Administration.

the very word ‘Hope’ will ring hollow after Obama is done with it, and I have higher hopes for Hope!

I only state the unstated, in my special way.

indeed, many of these unstated sentiments I sense are the unspoken assumptions underlying the discourse in the Progressive Netroots, for example, that More and Better Democrats are the path for the Marathon of Hope to follow, that the Obama-Biden ticket must be supported and voted for even if, and thats a big if, they are not perfect in every way, after all sometimes the perfect is the frenemy of the good.

impossible, and wrong to attribute such things to everyone, and please don’t take it personally, everyones view are complex not simple, I’m just trying to express what is often unstated, and let it stand on its merits!

Vote Republican?
Vote Ron Paul?
Vote Nader?
Write in Senator Clinton?
Don’t vote?

Hating or perhaps just opposing Senator Obama seems to be your pursuit.
What is your point?

remember, D is for Change!

Our system of government has been taken apart piece by piece until it is finally not recognizable as America. If Biden is not going to be part of the solution, then he is as much a part of the problem as Bush.

For Dan,
Heather

can Bush grant a pardon [to an unconvicted criminal]? . . . If they haven’t even been charged with a crime how could that possibly work?

Yes he can grant a “Political Pardon.” I like to differentiate between what is a “Political Pardon” (i.e. symbolic) versus a “Legal Pardon” (or “Get.Out.of.Jail.Pardon”), which the Constitution allows a President to give to someone who has been convicted and who is willing to accept the pardon for his/her crimes.

Ford granted Nixon a “pardon.” That pardon took, however, because it was a signal to his own justice dep’t that any indictments would be meaningless and any conviction would end in a pardon. Bush 41 also granted pardons (IIWC) to Casper Weinberger and others unindicted coconspirators, which effectively took the wind out of the legal sails of future investigations into the various Republican Iran arms related conspiracies.

While President Bush may issue something that he will characterize as a “pardon,” it does no free anyone from legal jeopardy if they have been yet been convicted. A person needs to have a conviction and a pre-conviction status to which they can be “restored.” Restoration is the basis of a pardon and without a conviction, there is nothing to be restored.

You will be hearing much more on this issue between now and December.

A key obligations we have is to educate the press (and our colleagues on the “angry left” too), and our elected officials so that they understand this BEFORE Mister Bush begins telling them that he has this power, which in fact he does not.

I suspect one of the reasons the Cheney/Bushes have been quiet on the pardon front is that they do not want people digging in too deeply into the legal limits of pardoning. Their thinking likely goes that (1) they can get away with it and (2) if they makes appear like “it’s too late” or “uncertain” then the Democrats won’t have the stomach to fight and will just move on.

More to come on this.

sláinte,
-cl