A Farewell to George Bush: Inauguration Flashback, 2001

A trip down Memory Lane. As Barack Obama strives valiantly but unsuccessfully tomorrow to fill the shoes of George W. Bush, here's at a look at a report --- from The Onion --- that captured what to come:

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'

WASHINGTON, DC–Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."



"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

Bush swore to do "everything in [his] power" to undo the damage wrought by Clinton's two terms in office, including selling off the national parks to developers, going into massive debt to develop expensive and impractical weapons technologies, and passing sweeping budget cuts that drive the mentally ill out of hospitals and onto the street.

During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.

"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?"

On the economic side, Bush vowed to bring back economic stagnation by implementing substantial tax cuts, which would lead to a recession, which would necessitate a tax hike, which would lead to a drop in consumer spending, which would lead to layoffs, which would deepen the recession even further.

Wall Street responded strongly to the Bush speech, with the Dow Jones industrial fluctuating wildly before closing at an 18-month low. The NASDAQ composite index, rattled by a gloomy outlook for tech stocks in 2001, also fell sharply, losing 4.4 percent of its total value between 3 p.m. and the closing bell.

Asked for comment about the cooling technology sector, Bush said: "That's hardly my area of expertise."

Turning to the subject of the environment, Bush said he will do whatever it takes to undo the tremendous damage not done by the Clinton Administration to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He assured citizens that he will follow through on his campaign promise to open the 1.5 million acre refuge's coastal plain to oil drilling. As a sign of his commitment to bringing about a change in the environment, he pointed to his choice of Gale Norton for Secretary of the Interior. Norton, Bush noted, has "extensive experience" fighting environmental causes, working as a lobbyist for lead-paint manufacturers and as an attorney for loggers and miners, in addition to suing the EPA to overturn clean-air standards.

Bush had equally high praise for Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft, whom he praised as "a tireless champion in the battle to protect a woman's right to give birth."

"Soon, with John Ashcroft's help, we will move out of the Dark Ages and into a more enlightened time when a woman will be free to think long and hard before trying to fight her way past throngs of protesters blocking her entrance to an abortion clinic," Bush said. "We as a nation can look forward to lots and lots of babies."

Continued Bush: "John Ashcroft will be invaluable in healing the terrible wedge President Clinton drove between church and state."

The speech was met with overwhelming approval from Republican leaders.

"Finally, the horrific misrule of the Democrats has been brought to a close," House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL) told reporters. "Under Bush, we can all look forward to military aggression, deregulation of dangerous, greedy industries, and the defunding of vital domestic social-service programs upon which millions depend. Mercifully, we can now say goodbye to the awful nightmare that was Clinton's America."

"For years, I tirelessly preached the message that Clinton must be stopped," conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh said. "And yet, in 1996, the American public failed to heed my urgent warnings, re-electing Clinton despite the fact that the nation was prosperous and at peace under his regime. But now, thank God, that's all done with. Once again, we will enjoy mounting debt, jingoism, nuclear paranoia, mass deficit, and a massive military build-up."

An overwhelming 49.9 percent of Americans responded enthusiastically to the Bush speech.

"After eight years of relatively sane fiscal policy under the Democrats, we have reached a point where, just a few weeks ago, President Clinton said that the national debt could be paid off by as early as 2012," Rahway, NJ, machinist and father of three Bud Crandall said. "That's not the kind of world I want my children to grow up in."

"You have no idea what it's like to be black and enfranchised," said Marlon Hastings, one of thousands of Miami-Dade County residents whose votes were not counted in the 2000 presidential election. "George W. Bush understands the pain of enfranchisement, and ever since Election Day, he has fought tirelessly to make sure it never happens to my people again."

Bush concluded his speech on a note of healing and redemption.

"We as a people must stand united, banding together to tear this nation in two," Bush said. "Much work lies ahead of us: The gap between the rich and the poor may be wide, be there's much more widening left to do. We must squander our nation's hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent. And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

"The insanity is over," Bush said. "After a long, dark night of peace and stability, the sun is finally rising again over America. We look forward to a bright new dawn not seen since the glory days of my dad."

Scott Lucas on BBC Radio Wales: The Obama Inauguration

Had a chance yesterday to chat about Tuesday's events in Washington. Afraid I played the Grumpy Old Man role (my father would be proud). I expressed optimism about the images on the day, given that Barack Obama is "one of the best speakers I have ever heard", but also concern tht the new President faces immediate challenges of substance with the economy and the situations in Gaza and Afghanistan.

You can have a listen here: the item is just after the 11-minute mark in the BBC iPlayer.

The Israeli Invasion of Gaza: Rolling Updates (18 January)

Earlier updates: The Israeli Invasion of Gaza (17 January)
Latest Post: Hello? Gaza is Not Tehran

1 a.m. Last night we closed with: "At the very least, I’m grateful that there has been a cessation of violence in Gaza. My concern is that we’re at the start of a different phase which will not bring resolution but further hardship."

More of the same tonight. Today has been for mourning rather than dying --- only one death from violence to my knowledge, while close to 100 bodies have been pulled from the rubble. There appears to be a very gradual Israeli pullback from the edges of the cities as they re-trench in their military occupation.

The politics today was posturing, as a lot of leaders tried to figure out how to respond to Israel's unilateral "cease-fire". The Europeans appear to be paralysed, as they await a President Obama, while Egypt's Hosni Mubarak is scrambling to save his personal position. The Saudis have gone into hiding.

That means that the diplomatic baton --- perhaps unexpectedly, if you scripted this a month ago --- passes to Syria and other countries pursuing a stronger line in favour of Hamas. They will be at the Arab countries' economic summit in Kuwait tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how forthright they take their position to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The main question remains: how long will Israel hold out with its re-occupation in the hope that Hamas will crumble?

Good night and peace to all.



12:30 a.m. United Nations official Chris Gunness has told Al Jazeera that 53 UN installations have been destroyed or damaged in the Gaza conflict.

12 midnight: The "other" emerging regional bloc in this conflict, with Syria as the Arab country in the lead and including Turkey and Iran, took a back seat to the Sharm el-Sheikh summit today. Tomorrow, however, all Arab states are at an economic summit in Kuwait, and you can expect manoeuvring to take the lead in the discussions over Gaza. So this comment from Syrian leader Bashir al-Assad, made on Friday at the Qatar mini-summit, might be noteworthy:

We will take care to remind our children of the Gaza slaughter. We will save the pictures of the children of Gaza with their wounds and blood, and we will teach our children that the strong believer is better than the weak. We will teach them: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and he who started it is the more unjust. What is taken by force will not be returned but by force.

11:25 p.m. And now Political Quick Move of the Day: apparently Bono, while performing at the Inaugural Concert for President-elect Barack Obama, just shouted out for "a Palestinian dream". As an observer noted, "Oy, the Israelis are not going to like that." (Obama, having promised not to issue any meaningful statements on Gaza until Tuesday, will react in 36 hours.)

11 p.m. Dropping objectivity for a moment to offer the Horrific Propaganda Story of the Day:

The Israeli Consulate has Twittered proudly that "Israel Opens Field Clinic at Gaza Border to Treat Palestinian Wounded": "One Palestinian woman was already being treated in the clinic eight-bed clinic that includes a pharmacy, an X-ray machine and five consultation rooms."

Hmm, this feels like offering a fella a Band-Aid after you've beaten him to a pulp. I guess it would be churlish of me to note that it would take 650 of these clinics for all the wounded from the conflict. And even more churlish to note that a lot of wounded died in the last three weeks because of appalling conditions in hospitals and Israel's bombing and shelling of medical services.

8:45 p.m. The video report of the demolition of houses and killing of at least 14 in Khuza'a is now posted on YouTube.

8 p.m. Israel military sources say to Al Jazeera and Reuters, "I can confirm that a gradual withdrawal of our forces is under way," but it is unclear how many troops are involved and how far they are pulling back. Eyewitnesses are reporting some Israeli units are moving back from edge of Gaza City, and Israeli television is showing images of tanks re-crossing border from Gaza.

Israeli military says 19 rockets fired into Israel today.

7:30 p.m. Speaking of Rafah Kid, he has video on his website of the mass killing at Khuza'a, which an article today in The Observer exposed today as a possible Israeli war crime.

7:25 p.m. Rafah Kid offers a pertinent twist on the formula, put forth at today's Sharm el-Sheikh summit, of a "secure Israel and a viable Palestine":

Ha! Imagine if written like this --- "viable Israel and a secure Palestine". Because that's the paradox that is the cause of this mess.

7:20 p.m. More than 90 bodies found today in rubble in Gaza.

4:30 p.m. Further from the Sharm al-Sheikh summit: not much of significance. Notable that King Abdullah of Jordan talked about need for Europe and US to revive the peace process but did not refer to an Arab country apart from Egypt. And United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon made a speech that was so relevant that British and Spanish Prime Ministers Brown and Zapatero could be seen laughing and chatting about other matters.

4:25 p.m. Al Jazeera's Mouin Rabbani: "This war, perhaps more than any other event in the last decade or so, has transformed peace into a dirty word and has transformed negotiations into an even dirtier word. And resistance, which had been very much a dirty word in the last 15 words, is now the word and the concept which is increasingly on the lips of the people in this region."

4:20 p.m. Al Jazeera's Mouin Rabbani has just roasted Mubarak, Sarkozy, and Brown: "I'm speechless that in 2009, you can have a major international gathering to discuss the Israel-Palestine conflict and have a whole series of keynote speeches in which the word 'occupation' is not mentions even once."

4:13 p.m. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who oftens play the aid card at international conferences, starts with a pledge to treble Britain's humanitarian aid to Gaza. That step, however, rests on Israeli goodwill towards aid distribution in Gaza, and Brown can only blather --- after a name-check to "President Obama" --- Europe must ensure political settlement to ensure "secure Israel and a viable Palestine".

4:10 p.m. French President Nicolas Sarkozy follows Mubarak. He initially emphasises the deal with Israel to stop arms shipments to Gaza but then delivers a stinger to Tel Aviv: "Israel should state immediately and clearly that, when rocket fire stops, the Israeli army will leave Gaza. There is no other solution for peace."

It looks like Israel may have unilaterally put itself into isolation over political and military issues in Gaza.

4 p.m This could be fun: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak just opened the Sharm el-Sheikh conference and, after the platitudes, told Israel to "get stuffed" on any ideas of an international force monitoring the Egypt-Gaza border from the Egyptian side: "Egypt will never accept a foreign force." Mubarak also invoked an "independent Palestianian state" without using the US and Israeli formula of the Palestinian Authority as the "legitimate Palestinian Government".

3:40 p.m. Another rocket reported to have hit Ashdod about 30 minutes ago.

3:20 p.m. A bit disturbing: Barack Obama either hasn't caught up with the plot or he is so cautious that he risks putting himself in a difficult position when he takes office on Tuesday: his spokesman says Obama "welcomes Israel's ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and is committed to helping Israelis and Palestinians work toward peace".

Unlike the Bush Administration and Condoleezza Rice's statement, which focused on the Cairo talks today and looked beyond Tel Aviv to put hope in a "true" internationally-arranged cease-fire, Obama is on the verge --- unintentionally or deliberately --- of tying himself to Israel.

3:07 p.m. Clarification on the Zeitoun atrocity: the number of "95 bodies" appears to have been a misstatement in the confusion as recovery efforts were disrupted by the advance of Israeli tanks. More than 100 people were in the al-Samouni compound; in addition to the more than 30 confirmed killed last week, at least 15 bodies have been recovered today and more are in the rubble.

3:05 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "It's going to take years to rebuild what has been destroyed in these 22 days."

2:45 p.m. An intriguing statement from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice which, despite Reuters' headline "US Welcomes Gaza Ceasefire", is far from a ringing endorsement.

Of course Rice did not criticise Tel Aviv, but she clearly looked beyond it when she said, "The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilisation and normalisation in Gaza." In particular, Rice tried to boost the manoeuvres in Cairo today: "The United States commends Egypt for its efforts and remains deeply concerned by the suffering of innocent Palestinians. We welcome calls for immediate coordinated international action to increase assistance flows and will contribute to such efforts."

I suspect the US, like Egypt, has been a bit wrong-footed by Israel's unilateral move, and Washington is now trying to recover an international strategy towards Gaza and Hamas.

2:35 p.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: "The destruction we are seeing is unimaginable." He says, "Streets have been bulldozed for kilometres", and building reduced to rubble.

2:30 p.m. An important move by Hamas: Ayman Taha has told Reuters that the Gazan organisation is ceasing fire for one week, giving Israel a chance to pull out of the territory.

2 p.m. The scale of the Zeitoun atrocity, which we noted last week, is becoming clear: medics report up to 95 bodies in the al-Samouni compound. Israeli tanks are in area, so ambulances, medical personnel, Al Jazeera's crew, and bystanders are fleeing.

1:50 p.m. Israeli military spokeswoman Amital Leibovich lays down Tel Aviv's line: "If Hamas chooses to still launch rockets, we'll answer back and we'll answer back harshly."

1:10 p.m. Israeli Government spokesman Mark Regev: "We can't talk about a timetable for withdrawal until we know the ceasefire is holding."

12:25 p.m. The first death of the "cease-fire": Gazan civilian killed by Israeli fire near Khan Younis.

11:35 a.m. The challenge to the Israeli strategy: The Observer of London offers this evaluation of Hamas, based on interviews with Gazans: "The organisation's prestige appears to have survived intact, and even emerged enhanced."

11 a.m. And The Observer of London is also preferring to look at issues beyond the "unilateral cease-fire":

Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died. In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside; killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags; opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded; used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

10:50 a.m. The Independent of London is way off-script this morning, noting the cease-fire but leading with the headline: "'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds." Physicians, including the Norwegian doctor Erik Fosse who helped expose the scale of civilian casualties, detail the injuries suffered from dense inert metal explosive (DIME) weapons.

10:30 a.m. Al Jazeera's Ayman Moyheldin: 25 bodies found as Gazans dig through rubble.

10:16 a.m. Tel Aviv, attempting both to gloss its claimed victory and to turn the game back towards Iran, puts out the Hamas=Tehran line: "Israeli leaders say the pounding of Hamas dealt a blow to Iran, which Israel accuses of backing the Palestinian group, and to Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon that fought Israel to a stalemate in 2006."

10:15 a.m. Israeli Army announces that it has launched airstrikes against sites for this morning's rocket launches.

9:50 a.m. While we think the Israeli strategy sought "regime change" in Gaza, there is another explanation: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert --- and this has been "Olmert's War" --- wanted a military victory to erase his failure in 2006 against Hezbollah. Aluf Benn in Ha'aretz sets this out, but adds, "Hamas' gains cannot be ignored: It has won international legitimacy and sympathy, and its forces still control the Gaza Strip."

9:35 a.m. Our colleague Rami Khouri to Al Jazeera: "There is no chance of any unilateral move by Israel having any success. It has to be a negotiated agreement that responds to the basic legitimate needs of both sides."

9:25 a.m. At least four rockets fired towards Sderot in southern Israel this hour. Machine-gun fire in Gaza on the ground, with constant overflights by Israeli planes.

9:20 a.m. Hamas advisor Ahmed Youssef: Israel still occupying and threatening Gaza so "we have to do something. This is not a treaty. This is not a peaceful initiative. This is nothing." If Israel withdrew, "of course" Hamas would halt operations.

Morning update (9:15 a.m. Israel/Gaza time): So Gaza awoke this morning to the "cease-fire" that isn't a cease-fire. Israel, unable to finish off Hamas militarily with a battle in the cities, now moves into a "Phase 4": Tel Aviv hopes either to finish off its Gazan enemy through further political and economic constriction or, if Hamas offers a suitable pretext through rocket fire or attacks on Israeli troops, re-starting more bombing and even more intensive ground operations.



The Israeli manoeuvre both tries to deflect growing international pressure against its Gazan strategy and to put the ball in Hamas' court. Does the Gazan leadership offer a clear sign that "resistance continues" through rocket attacks, inviting Tel Aviv to resume its military campaign, or does it sit back, hoping to win the political and diplomatic battle? The possible answer is an attempted balance between a limited number of rocket launches and a visible political campaign to free Gaza from its misery and re-occupation, but this may be difficult to achieve with the leadership so dispersed and, in some cases, operating out of hiding.

Ironically, the Israeli unilateral "cease-fire" may bring regional countries to the forefront of this crisis. Hamas needs support to withstand Tel Aviv's latest moves, and this could come from the emerging bloc led by Syria, Turkey, and Iran and supported by some Gulf countries.

Meanwhile, Egypt will try to fashion an alternative multi-national response today when it hosts leaders from the Palestinian Authority, European countries, and the United Nations, and representatives from the European Commission, Russia, and the US. (The sharp-eyed will notice that Jordan is the only other Arab country present. Saudi Arabia is staying away.) Those attending walk another tightrope: how closely do they follow Tel Aviv, for example with support for the initiative to block arms to Gaza, and how much distance do they keep given internal difficulties and the lack of a post-Hamas solution?

A Note to President Obama: The Case for Torture

A lot of woolly liberals are insisting that President Barack Obama, almost as he tosses aside the Bible (or Koran, according to Conservapedia) upon which he takes the oath of office, should forbid any use of "coercive interrogation" by American authorities. Mark Kleiman, however, still sees a need for torture to preserve the United States from wrongdoers who brought this country close to ruin over the last eight years:

Every step taken since the Bush administration took power: ignoring the al-Qaeda problem until the 9/11 attacks, covering up the role of the House of Saud in facilitating those attacks, using the aftermath of those attacks for partisan advantage rather than forming a government of national unity, allowing bin Laden's escape, failing to establish an effective anti-Taliban coalition in Afghanistan, continuing to prop up Pervez Musharraf despite his strong support for the Islamofascist ISI, failing to secure international support for the invasion of Iraq, invading Iraq, failing to prevent looting in Iraq, disbanding the Iraqi army and most of the civil service in the name of de-Ba'athification, supporting Ahmed Chalabi in his power-lust despite his ties to Iran, staffing the CPA with ignorant young wingnuts instead of professionals, allowing the looting of the CPA by contractors and cooking up legal interpretations to protect them from criminal liability, engaging in torture, failing to cover up the fact that they were engaging in torture -- Need I go on? -- has tended to weaken this country, and the West, in this existential struggle....

The President-elect should, therefore, as his first official act -- indeed, perhaps as part of his Inaugural Address -- order the immediate detention of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and perhaps a few others, at a secret location outside the sovereign U.S., for the purposes of extracting from them evidence of the plot and the identities of the other participants, who can in turn be detained and interrogated to see what they have to say for themselves.

TORTURE: A MODEST PROPOSAL

The incoming Obama administration confronts the problem of how to deal with the criminal (by domestic as well as international law) infliction of torture by elements of the United States government, with authority coming from the very top, and not merely on important terrorists but on random innocent victims.

While the Bush administration has no doubt made errors in the course of its valiant attempts to protect us all from Islamofascist terrorists, in one respect it has displayed admirable creativity, from which the Obama administration could benefit: assuming only that the President-elect is sufficiently generous-minded (as he seems to be) to be willing to learn from adversaries.

I refer to the question of the limits of executive power, or rather the unlimitedness of executive power. To call the legal positions taken by the Bush administration "creative" would be to undervalue them: "breathtakingly audacious" would be more accurate. But those positions, and the actions taken in accordance with them, now stand as precedent, and the President-elect has expressed his admiration for audacity.

Audacity is certainly called for. Our situation today is historically unique. Not only are we (as the Bush administration and its supporters tirelessly insist) at war with an enemy so nebulous as to guarantee that the war will have no end, but we confront strong evidence of the existence of a Fifth Column, though not the particular Fifth Column the war hawks predicted.

Every step taken since the Bush administration took power: ignoring the al-Qaeda problem until the 9/11 attacks, covering up the role of the House of Saud in facilitating those attacks, using the aftermath of those attacks for partisan advantage rather than forming a government of national unity, allowing bin Laden's escape, failing to establish an effective anti-Taliban coalition in Afghanistan, continuing to prop up Pervez Musharraf despite his strong support for the Islamofascist ISI, failing to secure international support for the invasion of Iraq, invading Iraq, failing to prevent looting in Iraq, disbanding the Iraqi army and most of the civil service in the name of de-Ba'athification, supporting Ahmed Chalabi in his power-lust despite his ties to Iran, staffing the CPA with ignorant young wingnuts instead of professionals, allowing the looting of the CPA by contractors and cooking up legal interpretations to protect them from criminal liability, engaging in torture, failing to cover up the fact that they were engaging in torture -- Need I go on? -- has tended to weaken this country, and the West, in this existential struggle.

It is of course possible to explain each of those decisions individually as the product of ideology, corruption, incompetence, or some combination of the three. But surely it strains credulity to imagine that the entire pattern, tending inevitably to the end of strengthening our enemies and weakening our institutions and our alliances, was mere accident. Surely the least hypothesis is that there were, in the Bush administration and its supporting institutions, one or more Islamofascist moles. The Hansen case reminds us that the best cover for a mole is apparent fanatical hatred of whichever foreign power the mole is working for. So we should seek out our Fifth Column among those who have been loudest in denouncing Islamofascism, and especially among those most insistent on subverting our Constitution to do so.

That points directly at Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Addington, and Yoo. Perhaps they are innocent, but the presumption of innocence is one of those ideas Yoo properly dismissed as "quaint." Remember, it was precisely the decision to treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem (with responses constrained by the Constitution) that the Bush administration correctly identified as the key weakness of the Clinton administration in its response to terrorism.

No, this is a matter of national security, and therefore covered by President-to-be Obama's inherent and unlimitable powers as Commander-in-Chief in wartime. According to the various doctrines offered by the Bush administration, he he can order the indefinite detention, and aggressive interrogation, of anyone he deems, his sole and un-reviewable judgment, to be an enemy combatant, including anyone who has given "material support" to terrorism. And as long as those detentions and interrogations occur outside the sovereign territory of the United States -- at Gitmo or Bagram, for example -- neither the courts nor the Congress has any authority to intervene, or even to inquire: even in cases where the subjects of the detention were known in advance to be innocent of anything but boasting. Indeed, any Congressional inquiry at all into any action by the president or his aides -- even frankly criminal activity such as the obstruction of justice -- is barred by the doctrine of Executive Privilege, as asserted by the Bush administration.

The President-elect should, therefore, as his first official act -- indeed, perhaps as part of his Inaugural Address -- order the immediate detention of George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, John Yoo, David Addington, and perhaps a few others, at a secret location outside the sovereign U.S., for the purposes of extracting from them evidence of the plot and the identities of the other participants, who can in turn be detained and interrogated to see what they have to say for themselves.

Since most bullies are also cowards, I suspect that the years of maltreatment the Bush Administration inflicted on innocent Afghani peasants to get them to make false confessions will not be necessary to get Bush and his cronies to confess. A month of hypothermia, sleep deprivation, and stress positions, or a few minutes on the waterboard, should suffice. Their confessions will retrospectively justify the interrogations. And of course they cannot be given the right to counsel, since their lawyers would necessarily learn about the interrogation techniques, which are Top Secret Codeword material as intelligence sources and methods, despite the fact that everyone in the world knows what they are. (The techniques are not original: all of them were copied from the Inquisition, the Gestapo, and the KGB.)

Now perhaps some future court might decide that these methods, as applied to people whose status generally makes them "non-torturable," actually exceeded the president's powers, even in wartime. But not only would that decision be wrong on its face -- since those powers have no limits -- but even bringing the case would be wrong. As all our Wise Men agree, no senior official should ever be held legally accountable for actions in the name of national security, no matter how horrible those actions might be.

So now is the moment for the President-elect to confute his critics, and demonstrate that he has the toughness needed to deal with the Islamofascist threat, no matter who its agents may be.

The Long, Long Farewell to George Bush: The Daily Show Tribute

The Bush Administration ends on "just plain weirdness....Why me-e-e-e-e-e-e?"

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