I believe the last days of the Bush Administration will be stunning ....

[Blackhatjack]

I think the Bush Administration has been hard at work designing a plan which will result in creating great difficulty in finding out what they have done, who did it, and who may be responsible for what has been done.

Pardons all around for those engaged in torture, or enabling it and hiding it, is almost a certainty. However, pardons are likely for an array of people both inside and outside the Bush Administration, many of which people will have no idea who they are and why they are receiving a pardon.

What will be really stunning is that Presidential documents that belong to the American People will be destroyed, hidden, and placed in the hands of individuals who will refuse to cooperate with efforts to access them.

We will likely find that an accounting of the Bush Administration cannot be performed simply because there are insufficient records to review and discover who got what, where, and when.

The last part of the plan is to fight out in the Courts each and every attempt to locate and access the records.

Of course the country will be in distress when Obama takes office, and the need to address urgent matters will necessarily interfere with assigning government resources to the task of holding the outgoing Bush Administration accountable for their deeds.

And an obstructionist Republican Party will act in concert with the Bush Plan.

I hope I am wrong, but that is what I expect to transpire....

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I am afraid they have planned things that we cannot even conceive of.

[truedelphi]

2. For many of us, Jan 20th can not get here quickly enough. n/t

[TygrBright]

3. Yes, but can they actually carry out ANYTHING effectively?

I mean, this is the gang that brought us Katrina, "Mission Accomplished," and a thousand other examples of apocalyptic FAIL.

There will be one hell of a mess to clean up, yes. But I doubt they'll manage to get every last scrap of evidence.

It's gonna be sort of like trying to hide a Saint Bernard under a bathroom mat.

reassuringly,
Bright

[geckosfeet]

14. My thinking as well. This administration featured a vp who shot a major donor in the face.

There is nothing that they have touched that has not been ruined.

[TheBigotBasher]

20. True enough

but that person actually apologised for getting in the way of the bullets.

I think that there may be lots of stuff on lower downs, maybe evven Bus, but Dick, nothing will stick.

[backscatter712]

4. My guess:

The day before Inauguration day, Bush pardons hundreds of people in his administration, including Dick Cheney. Then he resigns.

Then the freshly pardoned Cheney takes office and issues a pardon to Bush.

Then they all skate away into the sunset.

[soothsayer]

6. hey, clever!

[Cleita]

13. Jeez!

Don't give them ideas on how to go about doing it. LOL!

[yodermon]

18. Yep. But it will go completely unreported until after the inauguration.

just a technicality.

[Blue Meany]

5. And any attempt to bring accountability will give rise to

accusations that we are "criminalising politics."

[opihimoimoi]

7. Its been ongoing for 8 friggen years...these guys are sinister and cunning

They are not in the Gov'ts Best Interest...they are for themselves...self centered to boot

[Blackhatjack]

8. I don't see Bush getting a pardon for himself unless ...

... something horrendous comes to light between today and January 20th which requires him to step down, and having such a grip on the Administration I don't see there being enough time for that to happen.

Nixon did not resign until all other options had been eliminated.

[Independent_Liberal]

17. Actually, I think there may be enough time.

My best advice to you and others worried about pardons and stuff: Try not to dwell on it. I think it's best not to worry and stress so much about things you don't want to happen or else it will only attract those things. Like the more the negativity you pour into it, the more it increases the likelihood.

My advice: Try to envision a scenario where we force Congress to start impeachment hearings. Impeachment prevents pardons and forces testimony from insiders.

There may actually be enough time for such a scenario as, say: 1. Cheney steps down for health reasons. 2. Bush appoints Fred Thompson as VP. 3. Bush resigns. 4. Thompson takes over and appoints Colin Powell VP and they're the caretakers until Jan. 20. There's always this: Bush and Cheney both resign together and Pelosi takes over until Jan. 20.

While even I admit it's unlikely, by the same token, it isn't impossible. I hardly try to tell people around here to think positive anymore. Mainly because I too often get viciously attacked for it. God forbid any of us have hope. :eyes:

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. I wonder if they will 'pre-emptively' pardon people who are not

currently under investigation. You know, they way they did Nixon.

It would be very revealing to see who they give their 'get out of jail free' cards to.

[Blackhatjack]

10. Bush will likely pardon people who are completely under the radar of investigations...

People the DOJ and Government Agencies have not even suspected of being engaged in questionable conduct.

I think the list of those who cooperated in the 'warrantless wiretapping' and spying on American citizens will be long, and pardons will granted freely to them.

It is the fact that so many of the 'facilitators' of the policies that have violated the law and harmed people are hidden, and will be in line to get their pardons before people connect the dots to them.

[monmouth]

11. Can you "pardon" people who have not yet been to trial, or been incarcerated? n.t

[apocalypsehow]

15. Ford did it with Nixon, and IIRC the courts upheld it. I fear the pardons will be handed out like

candy on Halloween to just about everyone in that corrupt administration.

[monmouth]

16. HA! Well thank you for the info. I see Scooter skating along nicely....n/t

[sofa king]

19. Yes.

Examples include the pardon of Nixon by Ford, which protected Nixon from prosecution for anything he did, real or imagined, after January 20, 1969. (A note to PE Obama: many still think that it was Ford's pardon of Nixon which lost him the election of 1976. Please don't go there, should Bush unwisely leave himself open.) Andrew Johnson famously pardoned all Confederate soldiers after the Civil War.

At the state level, Governor Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky preemptively pardoned 9 members of his own administration and prevented a grand jury from indicting most of those people. More ominously, it was widely rumored that Fletcher had plans to pardon himself if he couldn't beat the rap (he did).

The only time the Constitution specifically mentions that a pardon can be rendered ineffective for any reason is when the President is impeached for related crimes. "Impeachment" is both a process and a result, and I'm interested to see whether constitutional scholars agree on which use of the word is operative in that part of the Constitution.

If it's the process, then blocking Bush is easy: simply drag out Dennis Kucinich's articles of impeachment and have the House overwhelmingly pass it on to the Senate. Once it's in operation, Bush's underlings should be once again open to prosecution for anything related to those dozens of pages of allegations.

Another possibility may be to impeach President Bush after he leaves office. This makes no sense on the surface, because impeachment is primarily a process of removal. But the result is to permanently prevent impeached individuals from ever holding public office again. Therefore, impeachment might be used to prevent Bush--and possibly any or all of his employees--from ever returning to Washington in an official capacity.

They're all long shots and I get the distinct impression that the Democrats mainly want the Republicans to get the hell out so we can move on. But if we do that, they'll be back sooner than anyone thinks, and we'll be screwed even worse than we already have been. I hope we nail 'em to the wall.

[Cleita]

12. Maybe there will be more involved in the Bush misadministration who

will start coming out with tell all books, kinda like Scotty McClellan. I'm really hoping once they are no longer in power and able to blackmail or bribe their plebs, that the truth will start trickling out in various leaks that might turn into streams and eventually a great big river where all will be revealed.