LOTT: In my mind, I think if the president would agree for his close advisers in the White House to testify before Congress under oath, he'd be making a huge mistake. There is a thing called executive privilege.

WALLACE: A lot of these Clinton aides testified under oath.

LOTT: Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean it was a smart thing to do or that it should have been done. I mean, I do think that presidents should pay attention to the precedents they set for their successors.

In March 1998, Lott appeared on NBC's Meet the Press and lambasted the Clinton White House for invoking executive privilege:

LOTT: I think they've made a mistake by [invoking executive privilege]. I think it will damage the credibility. It looks like they are hiding something, so I think they shouldn't have done it.

Rather, while Speaker Pelosi has "taken impeachment off the table", I suspect Bushie and Deadeye are desperately trying to put it back on.  And, the day will come - soon - when more than odd, single members of the Republican Party will be the ones calling for impeachment and removal.    

The linked article lays out where we are, and I think we're going forward to impeachment.  I speculate that, as the investigations progress, there will come a tipping point some time this summer, when it will become "impeachment by acclamation".

Pelosi could not - politically - put impeachment on the table and had to take it off, for the reasons I talked about in my earlier diary, plus one.  The last one - which I've thought about but left out - was that she would have to take it off the table lest she be seen as pushing her own personal ambition (whether she ever desired the Oval Office or not - I have no idea) at the expense of the nation.  Because, frankly, if we are going to impeach Bushie, he should be second, following Deadeye.  (Or maybe third, after warming up first on Gonzo.) Deadeye is far and away the worse;  I look at his political concoctions in and using the OVP as nothing less than a seditious conspiracy (in the common sense, not necessarily statutory sense of "sedition").

Of course, getting rid of Deadeye would yield a very solid leash on Bushie - the heartbeat away to getting replaced by a girl.  Or, the possiblity might itself goad him into new, more vicious acts and create the very cause to ensure impeachment and removal.

But, I strongly suggest, the overriding concern in any of these events is that we cut the heart out of the next generation of Republican operatives.  Deadeye and Bushie are never going to hold office again, anyway.  It's the kids like Sampson, Goodling, McNulty, Yoo, and all the other Bright Young Droids getting their resumes enhanced holding jobs they're not equipped for who have to be our focus.  If we miss that opportunity - to impeach them now so they can be excluded from public (executive) office -  they'll be back in 8 or 10 years, madder, meaner, and more educated in how to avoid the law than they already are now.  And, we might then wind up losing the war for the Constitution which we might have thought we had won by ridding ourselves of Bushie and Deadeye.

(Where they weren't afraid to call it treason.) But that's fiction. So let's move on.

Using a working definition of a police state, as being where law enforcement leverages it's existing power to grab more power...that's what America is now.

What a brood of vipers.

Many here have remonstrated against the Patriot Act all along.

It was predicted here and elsewhere, early on, that the "Patriot Act" (sic) would be abused and abused badly.

Surprise, surprise.

The so-called "Patriot Act" was an obscenity when it was conceived, an obscenity when it was written, an obscenity when it was proposed, an obscenity when it was debated, an obscenity when it was passed, an obscenity when it was covertly adulterated, an obscenity now and it remains an obscenity until it is dead.

This was all entirely predictable, and to repeat: we predicted it.

Spying in a police state is primarily done for political (and venal) purposes.

There is a reason that government is terrified of the telco executives testifying about eavesdropping equipment that has been plugged into their operations. The scale is massive.

It would be ludicrous to expect that the Windows Operating System to be any different.

How very telling that so many roads seem to lead to Orrin Hatch in this spy scandal and to the vice president's and president's offices.

Lawmakers have been blasting A.G. Gonzales repeatedly for over a year to fire certain US Attorneys.

They did so in many hearings with Gonzales on Capitol Hill. Of course he is in the middle of it.

How informative the Presidential Daily Briefings would be, to shed light on how central the US Attorney's roles were deemed to be, to use the massive volume of illegally gained "evidence" from the spying.

Or how that threatening to fire them all and at least firing some, would throw the fear into the rest of them.

How telling that Gonzales has "hit the road" to push the pogrom against young sexuality.

That is the basis for their treason. It is their entire strategy and rationale.

this is all connected to valerie plame's
testimony on the hill on the 16th, about
how it was that ambassador joseph wilson
ended up being selected to go to niger.

this letter is going to be the beginning
of a very long, hot, summer for those
involved in (but as-yet-uncharged-with)
exposing valerie plame's covert status,
and smearing her husband's good name.