LOFF56 HOLDS HIS GROUND

I'm not going to respond to this round, so...

Here's LOFF56:

"But I think you're missing the even bigger picture. The constitution and the laws of our country are but a part of what they violated. The damaged integrity of our nation goes way beyond the legality of their actions. I mean sure we could follow the letter of the law and prosecute them verbatim on their transgressions, but that doesn't in any way address the real crimes. There were just as many, if not more things that they did that were actually within the letter of the law and within their legitimate power that were, and this is an understatement, not in the spirit of our national character. How do we prosecute that? This is very similar to the way Wall Street screwed us over. Most, (albeit not all), the things that these banks did that caused this economic catastrophe were basically within the letter of the law. We can't legally prosecute them. It's an inherent problem with our legal system AND our constitution!!

There are other means of dealing with these guys besides the law, the Geneva Convention and the Constitution. The court of public opinion (arguably the highest court in the land) has already sentenced these guys to the 'political gas chamber.' To bring them into a real courtroom to defend their actions is like bringing a dead convict back to life so he can stand trial for a second murder he committed.

I do appreciate your concern though. There's a good point to be made about sending the wrong messages to criminals. And you're correct about what happened when Ford pardoned Nixon. But the other side of that coin is that we convicted Clinton, impeached him and made him a national embarrassment. But to what end... The whole thing was turned around so that he ended up looking like a victim of political sabotage, he's arguably more popular now then he was when he was president and his wife almost became the President. What message does that send? Cheat on your wife with an intern, then lie about it and good things will happen to you? Obviously the transgressions are not even closely comparable, but the point is that using the law as a means of punishment doesn't always have the desired effect.

The 'wave out the back door' by the way, was more of a clever metaphor on Obama's part, the true extrication of the Bush administration and it's policies started with the mid-term election of '06 (maybe even before that) and swelled over the next two years culminating with the overwhelming election of Obama. That's two plus years of "confronting the violators" in my opinion. We've dealt with this tragedy, confronted it head on, put it to rest, bought the T-Shirt and the fat lady has sung. There's only so much 'confronting of the tragedy' we can do before it becomes a dangerous obsession.

I really feel that we are so on our way to good things to come that opening an old wound like that just so we can make sure it's healing properly is kind of a pointless distraction.

By the way, the fact that Bush and Cheney are enjoying their retirement in their cushy homes with their millions of dollars is really a red herring to me. Taking away their money or their freedom for that matter is so secondary to what's been taken away from them already, their influence and their legacy. As the saying goes, "You can't take it with you", (money and things that is). But, you can take your legacy with you. And both of them have nothing of the sort to speak of right now."