The Official Blog of PCPB

The risk for Democrats would be overplaying the accountability hand. Their attempts to impose limits on Bush's ability to fight the war have collapsed repeatedly and left them unable to fashion a coherent approach to the most serious issue in the country. Some Republicans suggested that the public could tire of repeated hearings such as those held this week and write them off to partisanship.

The media is now playing the accountability might be used for partisan purposes and poison the Washington atmosphere card now that the Democrats are in power and are using the power of subpoena against the Bush Administration. Our country is tired of partisanship and wants to return to the good old days of bipartisanship and civility which fostered in a Golden Age of American politics as none had ever seen before. Excuse me? Is this the same media which mindlessly repeated Republican charges against Clinton and pursued the witch hunt against him with equal vigor that now says we must back off for the good of the country?

Were not the Republicans overplaying the accountability hand when they attempted to investigate EVERYTHING the Clinton administration did? 1000 subpoenas issued by the House Government Reform Committee and for what? Was he actually convicted of corruption? Remember the $200,000 wasted on Vandalism-gate, the claims that the Bush Adminstration was victimized (such a right-wing fantasy that continues to be repeated ad nauseam) by Clinton administration thugs who removed Ws from computer keyboards? Remember how those allegations were proved to be false? Where was the media? Apparently when the GAO proved those accusations to be utter LIES, the media was asleep at the wheel. Now reverse the situation...If Gore had been president and accidently misspoke, the media would have been all over, howling and frothing at the mouth to show the country how much of a FUCKING LIAR Al Gore was. (oh wait…)

We did NOT have accountability when the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress. Potemkin hearings where Arlen Specter would engage himself in a kabuki play of faux accountability filled with meaningless sanctimonious words about fighting the administration’s abuse of power and backing off when he got his nose too deep in its matters does not count as accountability.

"They bring up sort of old Washington," said former Bush aide Nicolle Wallace. "The Democrats have to walk a fine line and be careful. People don't want to turn on the TV and see every story being about the obstruction of people trying to do things. . . . The people who will stand out in Washington are the ones who will look forward."

Please compare this to what the Publicans said about Bill Clinton and the subpoenas which wasted our taxpayer dollars for nothing…and remember old Washington is what the Republicans instituted under the Clinton administration, but funny a Republican forgets to mention that...

"I think it would be disastrous. It is basically saying he is above the law, he doesn't have to comply with the law," said Senate Majority Whip Don Nickles of Oklahoma on NBC's "Meet The Press." "Everybody else in America has to comply with subpoenas (while) he's saying he wouldn't. ... I don't think that would be sustainable."

"I think the fact that he would ignore and violate a subpoena would certainly be grounds to file articles of impeachment," Hatch said. "If Kenneth Starr does have additional information, I think it could snowball into a real impeachment problem for the president. I personally hope that doesn't happen."

The Republicans are now claiming that our country does not need to be poisoned by investigation after investigation of this administration’s misdeeds, which include lying the nation into war, corruption, cronyism, intimidation of federal attorneys, etc. The list goes on and on, but the same people who sought to obtain Bill Clinton’s head on a platter are now saying that the country doesn’t need to go through another Watergate. It does not need the trauma of seeing a president investigated and convicted for his crimes, never mind that 3,200 of our troops are dead and 655,000 Iraqis and 30,000 Afghans. Now the liberal media decides it’s in their best interest to trump the GOP talking point and run away with it.

Sex scandals in the White House which should have been the business of the president and his wife are best sellers for the media but even the public grew tired of the impeachment saga, and the move backfired on them. Now the media is spinning that into the notion that the public doesn’t want to see a Democratic Party witch hunt and instead wants to see the president serve out the remainder of his terms in relative peace. Impeachment would destroy the country and it would not recover from the toxic environment the Democrats are about to plunge it into. I’m sorry, but accountability is not only for Democrats, it must be for those in power too.

"Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn't have lasted beyond its opening act," National Review said within hours of the verdict.

This is the GOP playing the pardon card. The country doesn’t need anymore trauma. President Nixon should have never been pardoned, but that according to the Republicans is good politics. Pardoning Caspar Weinberger so that he wouldn’t implicate Bush 41 is also good policy. However, when Clinton pardoned his choices, the GOP frothed at the mouth like the mad pack dogs, yet they are actually calling for a repeat of Watergate, because justice was never served.

Labels: accountability, Bush administration, Clinton, Libby, Libby trial, Monicagate, Vandalism-gate