Whitehouse Questions David Rivkin About Establishing a Commission to Investigate Bush Crimes

Run time: 06:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_QOJQsrask   Posted on YouTube: March 04, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: March 04, 2009 By DU Member: kpete Views on DU: 738

 
Whitehouse: Rivkin. You raise the gallery of horribles that might go wrong. If you assume that the purpose is advisory in policy only. If you assume that criminal law enforcement is properly cabined in Exec as it should be. If you assume coordination on issues like immunity. And if it is set up not as private entity but as delegated Congressional oversight authority. Still oppose, even in the absence of parade of horribles.

Rivkin: This assumes too much. To me law enforcement function has variety of aspects. Ultimate decision to proceed with prosecution.

Whitehouse: no one is suggesting otherwise.

Rivkin: Deciding as threshold determination whom to investigate.

Whitehouse: We do that in COngress every moment.

Rivkin: RIght in Congress.

Whitehouse: Right to delegate.

Rivkin: I do not beleve it is readily delegable.

Whitehouse: Now you use another hedge word. Properly appointed commission.

Rivkin: Appointments clause? If you could configure commission that makes it an extension of Article I branch. I don't see how you can delegate oversight responsibility. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck. WE've heard today about criminal investigation, PIN does, on 12 or 14 people, then passes the buck to PIN in public spotlight. If this were contemplated in different context, every law professor would be screaming about it.

Whitehouse: Every law professor? I'm trying to get an unhedged phrase out of you.

Rivkin: If Bush Administration had done an investigation on charitable organizations?

Whitehouse: organized criticism is an offense against their civil liberties.

Rivkin: Looking at individual criminal liability.

Whitehouse: nonono.

Rivkin: there's no way to cabin this. How are you going to come up with analysis of two or three members of Administration. If you said Mr A committed torture, that reads like doc that AUSA sends to his boss.

Whitehouse; My time has expired. Until you know and we all know what was actually done, do not be so quick to throw other generations under the bus and assume they did worse.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/03/04/sheldon-whitehouse-destroys-rivkins-gallery-of-horribles/

Mr. Rifkin is still in 1 -- the denial stage. He and his ilk of Republicans just do not want to admit that they were wrong, that they were seriously mistaken in trusting and believing in Bush. It is just a matter of time. The faster Obama releases the memos and the facts about Bush administration action based on the memos, if any, the sooner these Republicans will come to their senses.

The strange thing is that the Republican theory to which guys like Rifkin ascribe supposedly supports the Constitution. Rifkin and his friends just cannot admit to themselves that they were totally taken by Bush, that Bush's agenda was far afield from their own, that Bush was a self-interested would-be dictator.

Generally, these Republicans are so partisan that they refuse to acknowledge any wrong done by their party. Every response is to claim their own failures are successes, slough off any responsibilty for failure and twist the blame onto Clinton or Obama; one out of office for eight years but left behind a fairly positive situation and the other in office for less than two months.

The in-between is war-mongering Bush and the borrow-and-spend Republicans, yet they can still manage to call Democrats obstructionist and partisan at any opportunity because they held the majority in Congress for the last two years of the Bush administration.

and he wants to hide behind Constitutional guarantees he would deny others. Rip out his finger nails and pour tabasco sauce on the open wounds. He thinks it's legal.
The Nuremberg defense didn't work for Nazis in 1946, and it doesn't apply now.
Some people just need a good beating.