scariest words to a congressional investigation: transactional immunity

[unblock]

call me a cynic ("you're a cynic!"), but i DON'T think it's a good thing that congress will be investigating ANYTHING.

the fact of the matter is we will have far more success leaving the investigations to people like fitz than by handing investigatory powers over to the banana republicans.

remember poindexter and north? do the words "transactional immunity" ring a bell?

congress could investigate, call up the white house criminals, grant them transactional immunity for their testimony, let them say what they did and spin it as patriotic, and suddenly, there's no prosecutable case.

poindexter is back in government studying your personal data, and north nearly became a senator.

let's NOT let them grant ANYONE immunity!

[Jane Austin]

1. All they need to do is write a report

based on what they already had before the election.

If that hadn't been reeeeeeeealy bad for bushco, they would have already produced it.

[Richard Steele]

2. I don't think anyone is gonna make that mistake again.

There's plenty of ways to squeeze some truth out
of these liars without granting any immunity.

Their entire conspiracy is a house of cards;
ANY investigation is gonna be damaging.

ANY media attention is gonna be damaging.

ANY DISCUSSION WHATSOEVER of the things they have done
is gonna be damaging.

[Apostate]

4. hehehe

Seems to me like they should go for it then. :)

[unblock]

6. mistake? if it happens, it won't be by accident, it will be on purpose.

that's my point. democrats may scream holy hell, but the banana republicans in congress are in a position to grant immunity to the banana republicans in the white house.

this is the kind of sh*t that happens when you turn over every branch of government to lock-step fascists....

[Richard Steele]

7. You have a valid concern, certainly.

But I don't think the Repubs are gonna be able to maintain
their monolithic lockstepping long enough to pull that off.

Every Repub who has a chance of escaping this scandal
and salvaging their own career is spending ALOT of time
planning ways to do so right now.

With the elections coming up next year,
the most popular gameshow in DC is gonna be
"Distancing Yourself From The NeoCons".

I expect the "lock-step fascists" are gonna
be tearing themselves apart in an "every-thug-for-himself"
orgy of fingerpointing, spin, and recrimination.

They know perfectly well that the BIGGEST obstacle
to re-election isn't the Dems...
it's their support for B*sh.

[babylonsister]

3. From Fitz;

"This indictment is not about the war. This indictment's not about the propriety of the war. And people who believe fervently in the war effort, people who oppose it, people who have mixed feelings about it should not look to this indictment for any resolution of how they feel or any vindication of how they feel....The indictment will not seek to prove that the war was justified or unjustified. This is stripped of that debate, and this is focused on a narrow transaction. And I think anyone who's concerned about the war and has feelings for or against shouldn't look to this criminal process for any answers or resolution of that."

I think the Congress had to do something.

[HereSince1628]

5. I agree. I'd prefer to wait until Fitz packs up and goes home

At that point, and hopefully with at least one chamber in democratic control we can go forward. I have regrets about letting guilty minnows off to fry the big fish, but as long as we get around to gutting, filleting and dropping Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Perle into hot shortening I'll accept it.

[punpirate]

8. In the past...

... I've said that a hearing might not be the best thing at the time--pointing to the same instances you have.

One has to remember that even if Democrats could force the second phase of the intelligence review, the `pugs still have control of the committee--they get to decide things like use immunity, which witnesses to call, who gets picked to be majority counsel, how far to go in demanding White House documents.

There's a massive difference between now and, say, Watergate. Then, Nixon had already pissed off most of Congress, so the Democrats had some grudging support from Republicans in pursuing an investigation. Today, they're all marching in lockstep.

An investigation is definitely the right thing to do, but perhaps this is the wrong time. Forcing the `pugs to conduct Phase II hearings still leaves them in control of same, and given the way the Phase I hearings were conducted and the manner in which the final report was produced, one would think that Dems would pause and think before giving the `pugs the chance for another summary whitewash before the 2006 elections.

All that said, if there's even half a chance that an investigation and hearings would create the necessary impetus to generate an Iraq withdrawal resolution, if it were me deciding, I'd bite the bullet and say that the value of saved lives was greater than the satisfaction of seeing some of these WH low-lifes in jail.

The great mistake, of course, was that the Democrats didn't hold this hearing before the start of the invasion, when they had control of the Senate. But, no one wanted to challenge Bush after 9/11....

Cheers.