Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 11:23 pm by Darryl
Investigating Executive Power Abuse
The reason this investigation would be so very important, has little to do with taking a political pound of flesh. Yeah, I’d like to see Cheney frog-marched out of court if he is found guilty of breaking the law in a substantive way. But that is an aside. Even if nobody ends up being prosecuted or convicted, the investigation would still be significant, provided it actually brought to the public eye unlawful activity uncovered.
By doing so, it will send a message to future administrations that any time they go rogue—violating domestic laws, disregarding the Constitution, ignoring FISA requirements, lying to Congress—the crimes will be exposed for all to see.
In other words, such investigations should be about the future, in the form of deterrence (rather than being motivated by punishment, vendetta, or political posturing).
Besides that, intellectually, I genuinely want to know if Cheney did have an assassination squad, and if so, were they responsible for Yasser Arafat’s mysterious death.
