Scott free

Anyone who has been hoping that the end of the Bush autocracy would entail the opening of Cheney's information crypt will probably be frustrated. It's possible that nothing prosecutable ever done by this administration will ever come to light. Although there is enough evidence of a vast smorgasbord of crimes, misdeeds and prosecutable acts above and beyond the deliberate instigation of a war by means of false information; although the unrestrained domestic spying continues, although the evidence is there that even foreign leaders like Tony Blair have had their bedrooms bugged, that domestic groups have been infiltrated, wiretapped and followed; even eye witness testimony may never be backed up by official records. Millions of White House e-mail records may disappear into the bit bucket forever.

One of the first actions of the Commander Guy was to dismantle the system for archiving electronic records and replace it with a system that never has worked. Apologists for Bush might argue otherwise, but this was just another act in the unprecedented assault on openness that has obsessively classified not only the records of executive misprision, but nearly every day to day thing that was previously held to be public record.

Some argue otherwise and cite the need to "move on" but just as the discrediting of Nixon was held up for decades by his pardon and the loss of crucial records, Bush may be able to stifle history and thwart accountability as thoroughly as the folks who recently tried to arrest Karl Rove were stifled. The resurrection of George W. Bush may take place long before his demise, his policies given a new coat of paint and unmerited dignity and launched against us again. The Party that once convinced us that criminals were regularly let go because of Liberal Judges will, in effect, get away with murder,will be set back on the street to loot and pillage -- and there's probably nothing we can do about it.