Scandal, Scandal, Go Away, Come Again Some Other Day

You know a scandal over abusive govermental practices has reached the end of its life when the only government corrective is to open a toothless Congressional investigation. Hearings will be held, a report will be issued, and the whole thing will be consigned to the same dusty archives where all the other reports reside. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The debate over torture actually ended weeks ago, when President Obama said we will look forward, not backward, euphemistically expressing his decision to refrain from punishing the torturers and those who auhorized it. Obama won't even allow additional photos of torture at Abu Ghraib to be published. Rock the boat, don't rock the boat, baby.

No one will be prosecuted, because Barack Obama has decided that, when it comes to high government officials, we are going to look to the future, not the past. To quote Oliver Stone, these people walk between the raindrops. They don't get touched. They are above the law.

Obama is just another politician, albeit a smooth, crafty strategist. He's all for enforcing the law, except where it may impede his ability to stay in office.

Meanwhile, Dick Cheney's torture tour keeps on truckin'. Cheney's not doing this out of fear he'll be prosecuted. He's laying the groundwork for the neocons to return to power if and when there's another terrorist attack against Americans.

What Liberal Media?

On MSNBC Tuesday morning, "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough justified former Vice President Dick Cheney's quickness to attack the new president. "[Obama] dismantled this program on his second day in there ...I knew by the second day that America was less safe," Scarborough said, "if you believe like I believe and 50% of Americans believe, that this program actually made America safer."

We don't base government policy on what people believe. We base it on evidence. What possible evidence could Scarborough have collected in two days to convince him we were unsafe? None, of course. He's talking out of his ass.