More Than a Simple Case of Let Bygones be Bygones

President Barack Obama and Attorney General designate Eric Holder are absolutely right when they emphatically said that they would not prosecute any Bush officials for authorizing dubious wiretapping, torture, and other possible illegal acts that trampled on civil liberties. That would bog the Obama administration down in an all consuming ultimately no win factional fight with Congressional Republicans, the courts -- especially the Supreme Court which virtually upheld Bush provisions that condoned torture-- and legions of holdover Bush Justice Department and civil rights division-appointed attorneys. There were few squeals from Congressional leaders at Bush's borderline legal and constitutionally dubious executive orders that permitted the long checklist of civil liberties abuses, warrantless wiretaps of U.S. citizens, being one of the more glaring.

But there's another reason that Obama won't touch the Bush crew for their dirty deeds. They weren't the only ones that winked and nodded at the abuses. A lot of Democrats did too. The Democratic-controlled Congress passed the "Protect America Act." This put the Congressional stamp of approval on what Bush did and actually expanded his powers to snoop. The targets weren't just foreign terror suspects and known operatives but American citizens. It's not a simple case of let bygones be bygones especially when the bygones involve a lot of Democrats.