>Pre-meditated war crimes.

That's why one of the VERY FIRST STEPS the administration took was to withdraw the US' signature from the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/13/world/13GENO.html?ex=1189051200&en=e36d08b7d75b50d6&ei=5070

This is akin to "torture warrants" recommended for use in Israel by Alan Dershowitz.

"Under the Bush administration, however, OLC review became a waiver of immunity for breaking the law."

Not a waiver, surely. A Write of Immunity, perhaps?

All these outrages are lessons learned while all of these criminals were a part of the Nixon regime... and the lessons learned were, "How not to get caught this time around."
(And if you don't realize how many of these crooks lurked around the Nixon White House as young men, PLEASE read a book or two. I promise, it will be very enlightening.)

They almost got caught with Iran-Contra, but ex-CIA Director and fellow culprit GHW Bush won in 1988 and was able to cover their tracks.

What must they currently be doing behind closed and double-locked doors, now that even larger House and Senate majorities loom after they leave(?) in 2009, as well as a likely Democratic White House?
I shudder to think.

And there's really no way to stop it, as long as Republicans continue to rubberstamp Bush/Cheney.

I hope everyone keeps in mind that Cheney vetted all these Republican leaders for his own job, and so he knows every bit of self-confessed dirt on them -- and then some, I'm sure.
[aside: It is also my contention that he had Rove fired. No explanation makes sense to me, except a pissing contest that actually showed us that Rove is just an ordinary workerbee too, exposed as a lightweight compared to the current power of the Office of the Vice President.]

What to do about David Addington being a part of our government right now?
Unfortunately, I have no idea.

Someone's going to paste a 200 line impeachment manifesto in 5...4...3...2...

This is THE Constitutional "loophole", my friends.

Someone, somewhere got this very notion -- to use lawyers' opinions as the means to permit...well, absolutely anything. Clever bastards, those GOP wonks... My personal guess is Rove had the brainstorm; seems his style.

Consider the list:
- Torture? Get a lawyer to redefine it.
- Indefinite detention without recourse to a court of law? Make up a new term for "prisoner of war."
- Want to issue Constitutionally-violating "signing statements"? Have an Administration lawyer sign off. Done.
- Lying repeatedly to Congress? More legalistic parsing about "inaccurate," "inoperative," or "incomplete" answers. Or just say "it was technically correct" -- brazen it out, like Gonzales kept doing.
- Create an Imperial "unitary" Presidency by claiming (falsely) that it's what the Constitution's founders wanted, 'checks-and-balances' be damned.
- Pesky laws and treaties, such as the FISA courts and the Geneva Conventions, not to mention laws outlawing torture? Get a White House counsel to sign a paper saying the President can ignore all those things at will.

All papered over neatly with attorneys' memos, with the firm belief that these legal "opinions" have enough merit to protect against any prosecutions, no matter how flagrant the crimes.

Hell of a loophole, eh? Wonder if anybody has the courage to close it before the grand experiment in Democracy falls finally to overt autocracy.

I'd wager my right arm that if Congress passes even a watered-down resolution calling for any withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, the White House will simply produce a lawyer's memo saying Bush doesn't have to obey. Easy-peasy.

Since a mere lawyer's opinion is apparently all that is required to provide immunity in Bush World, I am presently seeking an attorney who will provide me with a Writ of I Don't Have to Pay My Taxes.

What this seems to indicate is an attempt by the White House (or by other parties in cooperation with the White House) to utilize OLC opinions to constrain prosecutorial discretion. This fits quite nicely into the pattern of abusing prosecutorial discretion for all kinds of purposes (prosecute voter fraud to suppress minority voting, fail to prosecute Republican corruption to maintain the majority). The need to revive the independent counsel statute is obvious.

The very first thing that the next President should do is to instigate an investigation *every* crime that this bunch of clowns has dumped on us. I don't want to hear even a whisper of "Our long national nightmare is over, now let's move on" from the next administration...the crimes of Cheney and company have got to see the intense light of day, be properly punished (even if we have to use their own standards of "interrogation" to make it happen) and then find permanent implantation in our nation's history books, so that the friends of these criminals can't come back with their revisions of what happened. This can't be papered over and anyone who tries it should be made such a laughingstock that any further attempts will be dropped...the Bill Bennetts and Armstrong Williams' of this world should forfeit their careers as recompense for their lies.

This "legal opinion" crap is the same thing tax dodgers use in tax shelters...they get a legal opinion that sez "It's okay!" and then wave it around when the IRS lawyers come a calling.

Similarly, if you look at Busholini's business endeavors, you will find a similar "rubber stamp of legality" all over the place...in order to cheat shareholders and commit, basically, fraud and insider trading with practically impunity.

Is it any wonder that Enron occurred and that the folks perpetuating it were good friends of the Bush League?

There is a big difference between enforcing the law and bending it all the time to suit the scam de jour. Let's hope the Congress and the American people have had enough of this sort of flim-flammery.

I agree with Jan above- Cheney is now running the show, the surge/petraeus theater is cover for Cheney getting ready to attack Iran, after all he's got only one more year to blow up the rest of the middle east.

The good news is that when Addington is prosecuted for Treason, either as an Accessory before or after the fact, or as a co-conspirator to commit treason, or just for War Crimes, it doesn't matter. He's certainly NOT a flight risk. Addington will be one of the first indicted by the ICC for War Crimes. He will Never Again leave the United States.

The same good news goes for the rest of the criminal cabal infesting the White House. They will all be sitting ducks unable to escape their downfall.

Little Georgie won't be safe in his new "ranch" down in Paraguay either...

ITMFA