Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
The Last Days
TPMCafe —
... for a while now. The topic: what should be done in the last days of the Bush presidency and the beginning of Obama's term to address the malfeasance of the last 8 years. The conversation will be centered around Charles' upcoming article in the Washington Monthly: Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don't know. ...
The Mixed Up Files of G.W. Bush
TPMCafe —
... In the spirit of the impending holiday, let me start off by saying many thanks to TPM for the opportunity to kick around the question of how to investigate and reckon with the full Bush legacy in the company of people who are much better-schooled in this area than I am. Scott Horton of Harper's--who, unlike me, actually knows something about the law--has a great piece on the subject out this month (Harper's hasn't put it online for non-subscribers, but if you have superhuman vision maybe you can read the tiny thumbnails ...
Getting To The Truth
TPMCafe —
... for his engaging article and to TPM for this forum. It seems to me that the strongest argument for the practicality of an investigative commission in the place of criminal investigation and prosecution of members of the outgoing administration is the difficulty in gathering evidence and having witnesses testify. As Mr. Homans has explained very well, the resistance Congress encountered when it tried to subpoena high-level White House staffers bodes ill for any attempt to discover the full truth about the decisions behind the most abusive policies of this administration. ...
Hullabaloo — ... I've written a bit about this notion of a bipartisan, 9/11 style commission to investigate the abuses of the Bush administration and for a number of reasons I've been fairly pessimistic that anything like it would come to pass or that it would accomplish anything. But you never know ... ...
Known Unknowns
TPMCafe —
... Charles Homans' article in the current Washington Monthly is a must-read for those who will be returning to Washington in January. He has catalogued what Donald Rumsfeld would call the "known unknowns"--the areas where we know something went on that the Bush Administration has struggled to keep in the dark. As he notes, we come to almost identical conclusions after approaching the question from different perspectives. The next step should be to fill in the gaps from the historical narrative. Who did what, when and how. We need to establish the facts and we need to ...
Mike's Blog Roundup
Crooks and Liars —
Washington Monthly: Last Secrets of the Bush Administration
naked capitalism: What Barack Obama needs to know About Tim Geithner, the AIG fiasco, Citigroup, and the Meltdown
Brown Man Thinking Hard: The quiet transition you are NOT hearing about (h/t swimgirl)
AlterNet: 2008 marks the 20th anniversary of Multinational Monitor's annual list of the 10 Worst Corporations of the year.
Legal Schnauzer: The Siegelman Whistleblower: Did a notorious Bushie sweep the charges under the rug? ...
You Can't Handle the Truth
TPMCafe —
... Charles Homans begins his article with a discussion about the excessive secrecy of the Bush administration. He is spot on. I call it the "Jack Nicholson style" of government. You remember it, from the movie A Few Good Men, when Nicholson, as Marine Colonel Nathan Jessup, pressed in court by the Tom Cruise-playing JAG officer about his role in ordering the "hazing" of a young Marine--leading to his death-- and then covering it up, yells at Cruise: "You can't handle the truth" He goes on to explain, "You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk ...
Ripple Effect
TPMCafe —
... Former Office of Legal Counsel head Jack Goldsmith declined to be interviewed when I called him a little while back for this story, but I'm glad to see he's ...
Must-Reads on the End of the Bush Administration
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo —
... and Charles Homans in the Washington Monthly. Obama seems interested in establishing a commission that ferrets out the who/what/where/when/why, but doesn't initiate criminal proceedings. That's probably the approach the majority of the country would prefer, but is bound to anger some on both the right and the left. ...
