Nadler Responds to the Coming Pardons

Jerry Nadler, Democratic representative for parts of NYC has been lobbied HARD to impeach Bush. We know this because several people here (and their friends) have been the ones lobbying. As a powerful member of Conyer’s Judiciary committee, he has been in a critical position regarding impeachment and has expressed his sympathies with the impeachment movement ‘privately’ to these constituents….while of course, doing next to nothing publicly. But lest I sound like the typical purity troll in criticism of him, we at least have evidence now that the lobbying did not fall on deaf ears. That at least SOME people in our dysfunctional government understand what has been going on for lo these eight long years. Even if they never did anything about it.

And truth be told….still aren’t.

Apparently Nadler is at least trying though to shine the spotlight on what will go down as the last official outrage of the Bush administration. The cherry on top of the shit sundae of outrages. The pardoning of as many of his henchmen as possible. Nothing can actually STOP Bush from doing this. He has the power to pardon whoever he wants. The best that anyone can do (short of impeachment, and we are ALWAYS short of impeachment) is shine the light to call attention to this oh so predictable closing act. It is the least they can do, literally, so I suppose we should thank Nadler for that. Sigh. It is better than a lit cigar up your nose, anyway.

The relevant passage:

…is in response to President Bush’s widespread abuses of power and potentially criminal transgressions against our Constitution. The Resolution aims to prevent undeserved pardons of officials who may have been co-conspirators in the President’s unconstitutional policies, such as torture, illegal surveillance and curtailing of due process for defendants.

“This Resolution declares that we will not tolerate [ed. note. this is in other words, just another Strongly Worder Letter] a last minute attempt by President Bush to shelter his cronies – cronies who may well be guilty of serious criminal offenses – from the full force of the law,” said Rep. Nadler. “President Bush must not excuse his own officials from possibly illegal acts committed outside the context of their official duties.  Such pardons would merely obfuscate the truth and amount to a gross miscarriage of justice.”

Beyond preventing pre-emptive pardons, the Resolution also recommends the establishment of a special commission or select committee to investigate the potentially illegal activities – including abuse of pardon power – of senior Bush Administration officials. It also calls for the next Attorney General to appoint an independent counsel to investigate and prosecute any crimes.

Please go and sign the petition  in support of the resolution.

I do like that last paragraph a lot!

WHEN Bush starts handing out pardons (and the only thing that will stop him is not wanting to admit that there were crimes committed. Pray for George Bush’s ego to once more rule the day, my friends!) there needs to be as much noise as possible about it, and we need to make sure to point out that only CRIMINALS get pardons, and so if he does pardon Dick and Donnie and the rest of his wrecking crew….he is admitting crimes were committed and that they were committed by his appointees and Vice President.  

WARNING: Purity Trolling ahead!

While I applaud Nadler for taking this step, if he thinks (and his constituents have presented the case) that crimes have been committed, why not impeach? Of course we all know why. Cowardice. The dereliction of duty by this Congress is just plain shameful. Better Democrats please! In the meantime, even another Strongly Worded Letter is something to cheer about, compared to the nearly total silence and inaction of the past, so…

yay!