Simply put, the John Yoos, Bradley Schlotzmans and Monica Goodlings of the late Bush administration need to be taught a valuable lesson about what happens to those public officials who willfully conspire to subvert our nation's constitution and core democratic principles.

We need only remember that as young Republicans, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove both cut their political teeth under Richard Nixon, and as they departed that benighted president's administration, they took with them long-standing chips on their shoulders and a mutual thirst for political vengeance against Democrats. Clearly, such people absolutely learned the wrong lessons of Vietnam and Watergate.

When we refuse for whatever reason to effectively and decisively deal with our society's less savory aspects or our government's past and present conduct, we only increase the very real potential that a future generation of Americans will be confronted with a national tragedy that's clearly rooted in our own present failure of nerve and resolve.