The Republicans would have called it a "partisan witchhunt" regardless if it had happened during

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

or after the Bush administration. They LIKE that it is happening after because that's a big part of their "banana republic" meme - only in banana republics do people go after previous administrations, which I think can easily proven to be demonstrably false anyway.

How can anyone investigate contemporaneously an administration that:

ignores legal subpoenas
fires USA's who don't uphold a political agenda
has an multiple Attorneys General that are targets
stonewalls
destroys evidence
tortures
perjures and lies
manufactures or relies on false evidence
outs CIA agents as punishment

[CJCRANE]

1. I really think

that the Repubs simply made a list of all the anti-Bush memes on LW blogs over the last 8 years and just copied them to use them against Obama.

That's why they seem like such obvious projection.

[Wetzelbill]

2. they want to do things like sell arms to Iran and then just forget about it

so that they can then accuse somebody of being treasonous while investigating their cat's Christmas list or whatever the hell they decide they want to do shortly thereafter.

Let's see, we can't look into obvious abuses that violate the Constitution and international law, because it's time to move on, yet when they get into office it's perfectly acceptable to have a 9 month investigation into stories about people from the previous administration taking shits in the cupboards and stealing silverware that turned out not to have happened. Good ol' Republicans, you can't make up this kind of absurdity.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

3. You just made such an excellent point.

Someone needs to come up with a list of the things Republicans did call for investigations of that were so damn stupid. I remember that far from being a joke, which some might think reading your comment, they DID want to investigate Socks the cat's Christmas list when Clinton was in the White House.

[Wetzelbill]

4. yes, it's so stupid it could be a joke

Just stop and think about that for a second. The people who are elected officials, responsible for laws that impact all of our lives, who represent our country in front of the whole world, they wanted to investigate the Christmas list of an effing cat! If that doesn't make you lose faith in the system, well not much ever could. And they do it soooo seriously too, like it's the end of the world if they don't do it. The GOP is simply cartoonish, they make little sense at all. And most of the time, Dems let them get away with it too. It's disheartening. That's a big flaw in our system. Technically the best and brightest should rise on merit to leadership positions. However instead of the cream of the crop, our leaders usually end up being the shitty froth from diarrhea.

[The Magistrate]

5. Quite True, Ma'am

[pat_k]

6. How? Couldn't have been simpler: Impeach, then prosecute.

Impeachment is the weapon we gave Congress -- Our Voice -- to defend the Constitution against such attacks from within. Each and every Member of the House; each and every Member of the Senate, took an oath to "support and defend." And each and every Member had an oath-bound duty to sound the "call to arms" and demand that their colleagues, and the nation, take up the ONE weapon capable of turning back the threat: Impeachment and Removal.

Unlike the men and women of our armed services, who we expect to risk their lives to "support and defend," the only thing our elected officials needed to do to fulfill their duty was to Open Their Mouths, accuse Bush and Cheney of their crimes and say "We must impeach and remove."

But they failed, issuing the pre-emptive surrender "We'll never win!" Or squawked "backlash" or "http://talkingimpeachment.com/blog/Hall-of-Shame-Inductee----Barak-Obama.html">distracting and divisive." The damage the War Criminals in the White House inflicted on this nation, and the world, while all but a handful bleated "off the table," is irreparable.

Now our so-called leaders face another test. Our Constitution is in breach and will remain in breach until they do what must be done. We know what the crimes are. We already know who the perpetrators at the top of the chain are. We have records identifying those at the bottom. The only question is whether the perpetrators have a valid defense. Neither Holder or Obama can answer that question with any legitimacy. It must be put before a court.

Obama can't escape duty with the lame excuse "not my department." He has an oath-bound duty to tell the nation that we must meet the mandates of our Constitution and the treaties that are part and parcel of that document as the Supreme Law of the Land. He must declare his commitment to ensuring that the Department of Justice has all the resources and access to all the records required to fully investigate, and where warranted, prosecute, from the top of the chain to the bottom.

And when he fulfills that duty, we would see a special prosecutor appointed and given plenary power to engage all required resources within the week.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. I agree with youthat it was the duty of Congress to impeach while it was happening

But they didn't. I LOATHED Nancy Pelosi's blanket "it's off the table" comment. To this day I do not believe she is aware of the loss of credibility and respect that she personally suffered as a result of it.

Since they didn't I am doing my best to come up with rationalizations as to why they didn't. And actually, they aren't rationizations, they are the truth. So, perhaps they realized they had/have their best shot at punishment by doing it after the fact. There is no statute of limitations for murder or war crimes, I believe. I don't know what all the other limitations are that they might be charged under.