Doing so properly requires not the wussy, half-hearted, half-assed, wink-and-a-nod investigation that we're all-too-familiar with, but a thorough, ruthless, hard-core, full-bore, no-questions-evaded probe that not only digs deep but also goes as far back as needed to get the whole picture, even if that means taking up where Frank Church left off 33 years ago

I doubt that Obama, Dean, and Pelosi would get you there.  But then, MB himself said:

Avoiding it, if that is possible, means, first off, putting away the perfume and inhaling deeply of the stink.

He surely understands that there is no way he is getting anything remotely like what he asks for.  The candidate who promised an end to partisan gridlock and professed a desire to stop refighting the same old battles is not going to endorse a full-blown investigation of Bush Administration wrongdoing, no chance at all.

Your refusal to impeach bush and cheney is a multi-faceted failing on your part of historical proportions. Never in the history of the United States has there been a stronger case for impeachment; never has there been greater justification or urgency for impeachment; never has there been a more appropriate use of the capability written into the Constitution for the Congress to be able to protect the American people and the Constitution from a criminal executive.

Speaker Pelosi, it is your duty, your sworn oath of office to protect the people and defend the Constitution; it is your job and your obligation as a person to do everything in your power to remove the criminals bush and cheney from their positions of power enabling them to inflict suffering and undermine the Constitution and rule of law. There can be no justification whatsoever for your refusal to initiate impeachment proceedings including if you and your fellow democratic leaders are implicated and complicit in bush regime crimes.

Every person must live with themselves. It is far more important to live with a clean soul, no matter what the consequences, then to live a lie, to harbor a criminal conspiracy against the rightness of American ideals. America has been viciously attacked by the bush regime and their republican and democratic supporters. Congress is all the people have to defend themselves and protect their country and their ideals. You MUST do your duty and protect the people from these criminals, you MUST initiate impeachment proceedings immediately.

 While I think impeachment of Bush, Cheney and Mukasey would be justified, I don't think bi-partisan support can be mustered before their terms expire (except, perhaps for Mukasey if the ground were kept narrow and specific).

And I would give up seeing people like Karl Rove and Scooter frogmarched in exchange for a bipartisan commission that looks at the systemic failures, their causes and ways of preventing this from happening again.  I know that no commission will adopt all of the reforms necessary but at least it may staunch the bleeding.

But I don't see how it can possibly happen. Even after the election, for practical purposes it's still going to be the same Congress that happily passed the FISA Immunity.

Once this administration ends, there isn't going to be the will to hold the wrong-doers accountable - heck there's no will to do it now; the ongoing message will be that there are so many more important issues confronting the American people to waste it trying to pillory people who aren't even in office anymore.

Sure, with a Democratic administration, there would actually be an AG who would - unlike Mukasey - enforce a contempt citation, but the GOP will beat the Dems over the head with the fact that they are wasting the taxpayers' time.  And since many of them will be running for office almost as soon as the election in November is over, there aren't going to be any big risk-takers.

Year after year, with each revelation, I would think, "surely, this will make the Congress sit up and take notice," and each time, there is a lot of bluster and bravado, and then...nothing.

I've been saying for more than 2 years that something needed to be done, not just to get to the truth and hold people accountable, but to draw a line on executive power that is going unchecked.

I don't see the guy who voted for the FISA legislation, who has a whole quiver full of right-wing arrows, being the leader who tasks the Congress and the Democratic leadership with cleaning the stink out of DC - even if he is running to change the way things are done there.  I have a sinking feeling that the only change Obama is really interested in is the one that puts him in the White House.

Speaking for me only

Like h@ll you are.

You speak for me, and everyone who loves what this country could be and still (I believe) can be.

The very words 'post partisan' in connection with politics make me gag.

Give me a fighting Clinton, Truman, Kennedy, FDR, Cuomo any day of the week.  They knew the limits of partisanship but had no illusions about who was the opposition and who was the enemy.

It wasn't personal.  It was always about issues.

The problem with these "bygones"...
is that they never seem to actually go by.

If you want Obama to respond to the issue being discussed here, you lie about him, then he has to overcompensate for the lie, and do something about accountability.

Right?

Isn't that how it works?

And I still wouldn't even consider MB consistent in his activist role until he uses the same heavy handed hyperbolic rhetoric (see subject line above) that I've seen him use about other politicians.

To judge MB merely from his own perspective, he's being very gentle.  I think to the point where I'd still say he's being inconsistent.

We get these fantastic candidates -- Gore, Kerry, Clinton -- but we can't get them elected.

and you can guess which one i wouldn't attach "fantastic" to.

to answer your question edgar:

What are we gonna do?

The Democratic Party has made it easier for me to be less concerned about their well being of late.

this is why god invented the "write-in" line on the ballot.

Greetings:

    I write as a US. citizen, as a Nam Vet who swore 44 years ago to defend the Constitution, as a former appointee in both the Carter and Reagan Administration, as a independent federal civil/human rights litigation attorney who for more than 32 years has successfully represented Hispanics against the malfeasance of DOJ,1 and a supporter of President-elect Obama, because irrespective of being a Republican, Democrat, or Independent the Senate must immediately act to restore the Rule of Law in the U.S. Department of Justice (See Adam Cohen, "Democratic Pressure on Obama to Restore the Rule of Law," The New York Times, November 14, 2008).

    For this reason I oppose the confirmation of Eric Holder as Attorney General because he is a defendant in a pending action under 18 U.S.C. § 3771 and civil RICO action to be filed in the U.S. District Court for D.C., based on the following  evidence in the record that establishes that as a Beltway attorney/lobbyist he is the linchpin in a criminal conspiracy since 2003:

    First, for five years after my Son was shanghaied to the Republic of Colombia in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1204, he did obstruct my Federal and Virginia statutory rights as a Father to compel DOJ to secure my right to international visitations with my U.S. citizen Son, pursuant to the provisions of the Hague Convention on Missing and Abducted Children ("Treaty"), and Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act VA Code § 20-124.1 et seq. ("UCCJEA"); and,

    Second, in retaliation for my litigating to enforce my rights under Treaty and UCCJEA and petitioning Congress (See http://www.liamsdad.org/others/isidoro.shtml),  in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 241, 242, and 1513, he conspired to punish, stigmatize, and deprive me of my right to employment as an attorney.2

    Thus, my opposition to Eric Holder is a continuation of my petitions of 2005 to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees: (a) for an investigation of the collusion of the Federal Courts and DOJ by abuse of the  Judicial Conference Act and the Rules Enabling Act to usurp the authority of Congress, the Constitutional mandates of checks and balances, as well as separation of power, and to deprive citizens of substantive rights;  and, (b) my petition opposing the confirmation of Chief Justice John G. Roberts for his false statement to Congress aiding and abetting the obstruction of  my right to compel DOJ to enforce my rights as a Father under the Treaty and UCCJEA (See http://www.home.earthlink.net/~isidoror/id6.html).

    Consequently based on the above evidence of malfeasance the Senate must take the opportunity during the confirmation proceedings of not only Eric Holder, bu of all appointments to DOJ to hold hearings on past violations of the Rule of Law and Congressional mandates.  For example, the Senate must inquire into the abuse of the Rules Enabling Act to use both summary judgement and Feldman abstention doctrine which has permitted State Court to deprive citizens of due process and parental rights under the Treaty, the surreal holdings of absolute Judicial and Executive Branch immunity for liability from suit for criminal and tortious acts which injure Fathers rights, the denial of RICO civil jury trial on claims of judicial and ministerial malfeasance, and the policy of denying access to an impartial court and the protection to victim of malfeasance pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3771, through secrete proceedings with DOJ by abuse of the Judicial Conference Act.3

    This is because the lessons from history have shown that,

    Once certain checks and balances are destroyed, and once certain institutions have been intimidated, the pressure that can turn an open society into a closed one-turn into direct assaults; at that point events tend to occur very rapidly, and a point comes at which there is no easy turning back to the way it used to be. Naomi Wolf, The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, p. 14, Chelsea Green Publishing, Vermont, 2007.4

    Therefore, at this critical time for our Republic the Senate must restore the Rule of Law, as well as the integrity and public confidence in DOJ by assuring compliance with the words inscribed on the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Department Building: "No Free Government Can Survive That Is Not Based on The Supremacy of Law.  Where Law ends, Tyranny Begins, Law Alone Can Give Us Freedom."

    For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully request that I have your support to be given an opportunity to testify and present evidence in opposition at the Senate confirmation hearing of Eric Holder.

    Very truly yours,

    Isidoro Rodriguez, Esq.

1After I argued and won Martinez v. Lamagno and DOJ/DEA, 515 U.S. 417 (1995), the Legal Times confirmed that I was the only known U.S. license practitioner residing outside of the U.S. and litigating in Federal Courts on behalf of resident and nonresident Hispanics, see also Lopez v. First Union, 129 F3.rd. 1186 (11th Cir. 1997)(Litigation that successfully stopped the unlawful seizing by DOJ of all nonresident Hispanic bank accounts in the U.S.)Web:

2In retaliation for filing Rodriguez et al., v. National center for Missing and exploited Children et al., Civil Action No. 030120, 2005 WL 736526 (D.C. Cir. March 31, 2005),  to compel DOJ to secure visitation rights under the Treaty and UCCJEA, Eric Holder filed fraudulent bar complaints in 2003 with the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board ("VSBDB").  But, the VSBDB issued a void orders as a kangaroo court since the  General Assembly granted the power to revoke an attorneys license only to courts-of-record and judges. See 2007 Petition for Impeachment of Va. Supreme Court, et al., http://www.petitiononline.com/RDL/petition.html; see also.

3The evidence confirms that in retaliation the Federal Courts have: (I) refused to empanel a Special Grand Jury and denied me access to an impartial court to compel DOJ to protect me as a victim of federal crimes as mandated by 18 U.S.C. § 3771(a), In re Isidoro Rodriguez US S Ct.  No. 08-339, Writ denied on November 17, 2008 (Petitioner's Exhibit 3); (II) deprived me of my right to a jury trial in the D. C. under RICO-based on the holding of absolute Judicial and Executive immunity from tortious and criminal liability-and declared lack of venue to maintain a RICO action in D.C., Isidoro Rodriguez, Esq. v. Editor in Chief, Legal Times, et al., US S Ct. No. 08-411, Cert. denied December 1, 2008; and, (III) denied me of procedural and substantive due process right by refusing to enjoin the illegal attorney disciplinary system of the Supreme Court of Virginia, Isidoro Rodriguez v. Hon. Leroy Rountree Hassell, Sr. Chief Justice, Sup. Ct. of VA, et al., US S Ct. No. 08-574, Cert. denied on December 8, 2008.

3The dangers to our Republic and citizens by collusion of DOJ with the Federal Courts are real. ". . . the Courts in our judicial system have, in fact, become the lawmakers, when it is very clear . . . that our Constitution delegated that responsibility to the Congress of the United States and the State Legislatures . . . the legal profession has truly changed from being one of the premier professions in our society to a business where the number one objective or bottom line is financial profit . . . " Dennis DeConcini, U.S. Senator (Ret). The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion, by John Fitzgerald Molloy. St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House.

THE LAW OFFICES OF ISIDORO RODRIGUEZ
ATTORNEYS AND COUNSELORS AT LAW
Isidoro Rodriguez, Esq.
A member of the Bar of the United States Supreme Court;
of the U.S. Ct. of App for 2nd, D.C., and Fed. Cir.; and U.S. Tax Ct.