Executive priveledge does not apply to criminal actions. With the Plame situation, there is already a criminal conviction. Wouldn't this make this claim null and void?

I am greatly concerned about the chilling effect that compliance with the Committee's subpoena would have on future White House deliberations and White House cooperation with future Justice Department investigations.

Translation: Exposing White House criminal conduct may severely affect the ability of future Republican administrations to engage in criminal conduct.

Seems the capability to virtually disregaurd any and all forms of law can be attributed to allowing

Unitary Executive Power to take over!

Now what?

We all can thank Sens. Schumer and Feinstein for voting to confirm this Bushite on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

From Woodrow Wilson:

Quite as important as legislation is vigilant oversight of administration; and even more important than legislation is the instruction and guidance in political affairs which the people might receive from a body which kept all national concerns suffused in a broad daylight of discussion .... The informing functions of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function. The argument is not only that a discussed and interrogated administration is the only pure and efficient administration, but, more than that, that the only really self-governing people is that people which discusses and interrogates its administration.

—Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government 195, 198 (Meridian Books 1956)(1885).

I guess everyone in Bush's administration missed that day on Wilson at school.

Take a look at the Congressional Research Service's Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege:
History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments
Updated April 16, 2008
Morton Rosenberg
Specialist in American Public Law
American Law Division (external PDF link from Wikipedia's article on Executive Privilege http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Privilege

Lest we forget, what really prompted Nixon's ouster from the White House: He fired Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his Deputy William Ruckelshaus in an effort to fill the top DoJ position with someone who would in turn fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. The Saturday Night Massacre, as it is called, eroded support for Nixon even among key Republicans.

Notice that with picks like Gonzales and Mukasey Bush has learned from Nixon's 'mistakes', and forestalled such a demise. Another lesson he has learned: don't keep tapes of Oval Office conversations. Only a fool gathers evidence against himself.

"Those who would not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana

Pelosi and Reid will never agree to impeachment hearings as long as the Senate has so many Republicans who will never vote to convict. A failed attempt at impeachment would not help Obama, and Obama's AG will have free reign to investigate the Bush lackeys once he's in.

T-minus 183 days until the hubris ends and the American Constitution is respected by those in the White House.