Question: Which candidate is most likely to prosecute the crimes of the Bushies?

I believe that certain members of the Bush administration abused the authority of their offices and committed crimes while in office. Assuming that the evidence is found to establish that they did commit such crimes, I think it is important that the next president investigate and prosecute their crimes.

I have been asking myself which of the candidates is the most likely to pursue prosecutions and here are my thoughts. I am interested in hearing what other people think about this.

1. Hillary. Not likely to prosecute. Reasons: 1) if she tries, she will be bludgeoned in the press and in the right-wing blogs for just trying to get vengeance; 2) Bill did not prosecute the Iran-Contra and other crimes of the Reagan and Bush I eras while he was in office; 3) she plays the D.C. game and her anger at the other side is for public consumption. Once behind closed doors with the Republicans she prays and eats and parties with, she is just one of the gang; 4) she won't want to lose her D.C. insider edge; 5) she would be afraid of the dirt that the other side would bring up about her and Bill if she started getting serious about attacking Republicans; 6) she would feel that it would be a distraction from her agenda; 7) she would not want to offend her corporate backers who, after all were Bush's backers before they were hers.

2. Obama. Not likely to prosecute. Reasons: 1) He likes to be liked very, very much and prosecuting people makes you disliked very, very much by the people you prosecute and their friends; 2) he has no sense of history. (It would be interesting to know what he knows about Iran-Contra and the Reagan October Surprise conspiracy theory.); 3) same as the 3 for Hillary: He plays the D.C. game and likes to be nicey nicey and get the invites and the honors that abound if you play that game (All you have to do is look at the list of his endorsements and you see "D.C. gamers" written all over it.); 4) It would take a lot of extra work and he will have more than he can handle once he is in the White House; 5) He's too scared of that he might become the walking political target of the right-wing if he closes in on their graft and corruption.

3. Edwards. More likely to prosecute but not certain to do so. Reasons he would prosecute: 1) He truly loves justice; 2) He believe in clean government; 3) He is a straight-arrow guy who doesn't break important rules himself and is angered when other people do; 4) He is a D.C. outsider and doesn't play D.C.'s game (Mirror image statement about the endorsements. Look at who did not endorse Edwards -- and you'll see that he is not considered to be a D.C. gamer.); 5) He is a lawyer at heart and won't be able to resist such a winnable case; 6) It will scare the living daylights out of anyone who wants to practice graft and corruption and cheat the American people in the future; 7) It will prevent anyone in his White House from pulling shenanigans that he doesn't want to see pulled; 8) The American people will love him for it if he does it in a fair way and without malice.

Reasons he would not prosecute: 1) It would take time, attention and resources away from the positive agenda he wants to focus on; 2) Some of the potential defendants are very old and might elicit a certain sympathy from the press and public; 3) It's hard to prosecute people who gave many years in public service unless you have a very good case and in some instances the case may not be as strong as some of us believe it to be; 4) He's kind and does not want to make people suffer but instead wants to relieve suffering; 5) He doesn't want to stir up a hornets' nest; 6) He might just appoint a special prosecutor to keep the Bushies from getting too sure of themselves but go very slow with the process so as to weaken and disable them (for strategic tactical reasons hold facts and information over their heads and make them insecure and uneasy about when the ax could fall and whether it will); 7) he'd rather focus on legislation that will make it harder for corruption to establish a foothold in the future.

These are my free associations on this issue. What do you think? Will justice ever be done, or will the next president, assuming he or she is a Democrat, just let by-gones be by-gones?

cut off from the campaigns where he can get his voice heard. I don't think any of the top three will do anything.

It would be completely divisive for the party. After all this time where subpoenas have been ignored, hearings and investigations incomplete, and impeachment tossed aside, it has become apparent that following up would involve large scale embarrassment for the Democratic party leaders. Their reasons for not doing the will of the people are because they would get bogged down, and legislation wouldn't be done. Well, it is pretty obvious that not a lot is getting done due to obstruction by the Repubs, who, I believe realize won't be investigated. Compare this to the Watergate era, when for a lot less reasons, dove headlong into hearings and investigations to get to the bottom of what happened. My opinion is that the Democratic leaders, as the minority, knew fully about illegal wiretaps, Gitmo torture activities and the phony evidence leading to Iraq. And probably plenty more.

This administration should be ashamed of what they have done, but I think it is so much their modus operandi, they don't realize they have been dishonest. Well, they DO know when to hide the evidence, though.

Such disgusting people.

Maybe Dennis Kucinich, but he has been marginalized and I am not sure he could win even if the media were treating him fairly and giving his truths half the uncritical trumpeting they give Bushie 100% Lies.