If I Had Subpoena Power: Five Questions for Obama

The U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, like every U.S. Attorney who has served during the Bush Administration, is a partisan, notwithstanding the media PR casting him as the square-jawed Man O' Law. The ranks of the U.S. Attorneys during the Bush regime were filled under the strict watch of ideologically obsessed people like Monica Goodling, who virtually single-handedly vetted every federal prosecutor, judicial nominee, and significant Justice Department job applicant on grounds that even the DoJ, itself, later concluded were beyond the pale. Only "loyal Bushies" were drawn to the cause of "justice." The toxic results in federal law enforcement efforts have been staggering: from 2001 to 2006, the Bush Administration's Justice Department prosecuted seven times as many Democrats as Republicans at the local level; anti-terrorism legislation like the Patriot Act, especially Section 213, has been pressed into distorted service for everything from drug trafficking to pornography; so-called National Security Letters have become so abusively over-used that the DoJ Inspector General finally criticized the Bureau for its actions.
Fitzgerald is the fruit of a poison tree. He led a PR-driven investigation into the White House???s outing of a CIA spy. He did not even compel President Bush to testify under oath before a grand jury; instead, he conducted a private "interview" with the President, allowing Dick Cheney, the man at the very center of the outing of the spy, to be right there beside Bush during the chat. Fitzgerald then supported DOJ???s obstruction of Congress??? request for a transcript of the interview.
Fitzgerald's investigation totaled somewhere around a million dollars, maybe two when "Scooter" Libby???s trial is thrown in. Compare that with the tens of millions of dollars congressional Republicans spent on prosecutorial witch hunts of President Clinton in the 1990s.
Fitzgerald???s prosecutorial record, his conduct in the Plame investigation, and his history of prosecutorial bullying that was so over the top that he once went after a sitting judge who dared to rule against him speak to authoritarianism, not respect for the rule of law.
Subsequent to the ???investigation,??? Fitzgerald warned that he would offer Congress little were he called to testify. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee blustered about getting him under oath to tell what he had uncovered, but they knew very well the square-jawed Man O' Law was finished: he had told them as much when he stated that it was Congress??? responsibility to pursue any charges against the Bush Administration.
Fitzgerald in essence told the Senate, which had by that time come under nominal control of the Democrats, "Not only are you Dems too gutless to force my full testimony, but you're too gutless, involved, culpable, and weak to go after Bush, yourselves, you pathetic cowards."
He was right, of course.

And you, Mr. Isikoff, are why scare q

Hey Barney!..........is this the reptilian Barney???
Stick to your day job scaring the crap out of little kids and leave the adults alone.
We're trying to have an unemotioal rational discussion and that requires the use of higher functioning areas of the brain.
It isn't all about feelings and emotion..........how about some thought?
Thank-you

I voted for Obama. The reporter asks all good questions and does not ask for unreasonble conditions. These questions should be answered and the transparency described should be agreed with. God Bless America!

What a bunch of total right wing b*llsh*t. Why don't you use your fairy dust subpoena and ask Bush what the fork he has been doing for eight miserably long years.

No one is asking the real question: What did Obama have to pay - and to whom - to get HIS Senate seat? Blago's activities reflect the way things have been, and Obama has the ability to create money like no one else we have seen in a very long time. Essentially, he bought his way into the presidency. God help us all.....

can we finally move away from c

Yeah, so what, right owlafaye?! Besides, what does honesty and heaven forbid, morality, have to do with the presidency right. Well let me spell it out for you owlafaye. See, if Obama new that Blago was trying to sell the seat, even if he wasn't willing to pay for it accept for appreciation, he had an obligation to disclose that. See, that's what us conservatives call honesty. Look it up you freaking idiot.