At this point, I'm thinking it might have been better if we *had* elected McCain/Palin last year... because we'd all be dead by now and we wouldn't have to put up with any of this shit.

We have met the enemy and he is we.

Apparently "Looking forward, not back" only applies to republicans.

This story screams for tv coverage. Other than a 60 minutes piece, only Dan Abrams spent considerable time covering this story.

Obama, if he cared about the rule of law in Alabama, would recess appoint a new US attorney in the middle district to replace Leura Canary. The legal apparatus in Alabama has looked the other way at Republican corruption, and sought to prosecute Democrats, regardless of their guilt or innocence.

Obama needs to understand that to set things right after 8 years of bush's flouting of the law, he's going to have to play hardball like bush did and use every tool, including recess appointments, to get the people's business done.

What is wrong with Obama? The Bush administration could politicise the justice department to the point of making it a political weapon, and Obama can't even pull it back to "fair".

The treatment of Siegelman echos the DOMA brief; it seems both are being handled by Bush holdovers. As far as the Justice department is concerned, electing Obama does seem like 4 more years of Bush.

It would be better to have some offices vacant than have them occupied by Republicans bent on vendettas.

I fucking hate Obama. Disgusting Bush-enabling, torture-enabling, Wall-Street-coddling, war-escalating piece of shit.

His only purpose is to hold the line against any Democratic rollback of Bush's policies.

Well if Don Seigelman says it, that's good enough for me.

OpenSecrets has documented that 26 individuals who Obama appointed to ambassadorships, along with their immediate family members, have contributed roughly $3 million to federal candidates, committees and parties since 1989, with 92 percent of that going to Democrats. Sixteen of them are also responsible for bundling at least $5 million to Obama's campaign committee.

So if the Obama administration really believes that Siegleman is guilty of bribery for appointing a campaign contributor to the Alabama state hospital regulatory board, then certainly Obama must be guilty of bribery several times over for appointing his campaign contributors to ambassadorships all over the world.

I would suggest that Attorney General Eric Holder immediately indict Barack Obama for bribery, for his obvious and very flagrant violation of the law, or else become complicit in the ongoing cover-up.

I have little legalese knowledge - so I cannot interpret the Siegelman brief - so I cannot say if the legal decision is correct or not.

But - I thought a huge chunk of the Siegelman case was based on the corruption of AG Canary connected to Karl Rove and some faulty testimony from some guy who was bribed and even had connections to Sessions, etc.???

Ted Stevens got off on DOJ Prosecutor corruption - how come the DOJ is refusing to review Siegelman's case - for the internal DOJ corruption?

If the Obama DOJ is refusing to investigate the Bush corrupt DOJ - then yeah - this is another huge disappointment.

Rahmobama, seems intent on on upholding the unitary executive tradition from Bush both in form and content. Name any single significant form of transparency of accountability in this administration on any of the hot-button issues. There was the release of some torture memos, which was seen immediately as a mistake and reason to shut down the release of further pictures ordered by courts. Name any single, LASTING (non-retracted or reversed) form of accountability or transparency by this administration for the last administration or for bankers, torturers, or any high ranking official that is not a Democrat. Jefferson from La. got his and Siegelman has Obama's administration arguing to keep him behind bars.

Where are all those house parties and community organizing apparatuses he was going to keep going to make sure we helped him pass a robust, progressive health care bill, and all these other pro-Main Street bills? All I get now are cute holiday messages and solicitations for money. This is not a critique of Obama. This is CALLING HIM OUT. He promised a very core list of actions he would be pursuing, and he detailed the policies and ways he would be pursuing them. Not only has he NOT done this, in many cases he has explicitly reversed himself and done exactly what he accused his opponents of during the campaign. That is simply an abuse of my trust and of the public trust, no matter how you slice it. If you changed your mind, then give the rationale and show how it grew out of your other commitments meeting "reality." Educate the public. Do not shroud what you do and attempt to keep things unresolved and uninvestigated.

And by the way, all those laws past listed by one of the posters, check to see how much of that money has been actually distributed to the supposed beneficiaries on Main Street. You will find in most cases that a bare fraction has been distributed. What good is passing a law if it is not funded and actually executed? Obama is definitely hewing to the Reagan legacy he talked so much about-- big on symbolism, bipartisanship, and apple pie in speech, and much smaller on policy and action that benefit the average citizen. How much of the less-than-a-trillion stimulus made it to small businesses? Yet we have about 13 trillion committed in guaranteed loans, taxpayer bailouts, etc. to big financial institutions, including 100% reimbursement on AIG insurance policies to other big banks, when those same banks were already negotiating a 40% buyout.

Unless you want to make the argument that currying favor with the very perpetrators of multiple and catastrophic financial and political evils is a great way to establish prosperity and the rule of law, I don't see the critique of those that critique the Obama administration as holding water. Precedence is everything in relationships and politics. You set the pattern for things to come by what you do now in a way that greatly restrains or liberates your ability to get things done later on. Can anyone say that the pattern after nearly a year is a favorable, strong, and healthy one in its own right? (without endless excuse-making about 8 years of slime being hard to clean up). You don't clean up slime by using the same goop.

Write your book, Don.

Get the whole story out there, and use actual newpaper reports as the intro to each chapter, with the WHOLE story unfolding after those intro's.

Let the public know, so far what we get from the blogs is our only info, while it is so much more than we can get from the mainstream media, a book would make it public knowledge.

Tell your story, it is very compelling.

Then see if they still say no.

I'm inclined to think Rhamobama have a reason for leaving the Bush DOJ in place, and to wonder what that reason might be. What did the Administration get for agreeing to leave it unchanged? Who benefits by keeping Siegelman out of public life? Are money party Dems knocking off viable progessives in their own party? How does Rahmobama benefit from kneecapping Seigelman and the progressive southern Democrats of whom he is emblematic. Who else benefits, and what are their ties to the administration of President Snake Oil?