Pelosi was quick to admonish President Obama’s mention of a blanket pardon, pounding home her unquenchable need to root out the evildoers in the Bush presidency. Her “Truth Commission” crusade is backed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy and several other prominent Democrats in both the House and Senate.

In a strange turn of events Senator Dianne Feinstein is not on board with her fellow Californian Democrat. She wants to continue with her Committee’s investigation into the matter. Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, has also used cautious language when speaking about the Truth Commission. In what appears to be Obama’s truest form to date, the President has vacillated between denouncing this Commission and embracing it, making it particularly difficult to see what he actually believes Congress should do.

If he can’t decide if the Armenian genocide happened or not, what is the likelihood we’ll get a straight answer on the Truth Commission?

President Obama, the consummate politician, probably realizes that publicly opening the door on the currently unpopular decisions of the previous administration is very, very dangerous. He surely realizes that so openly attacking and humiliating the previous administration with this sort of commission, the kind of attack that could certainly lead to criminal charges, leaves him vulnerable to a similar attack in the future. Democrats never forgot that President Clinton was impeached for what they insist was simply marital infidelity. It did not matter that the charge dealt with a sitting President admittedly lying (under oath) to Congress. The core of the issue does not have to be invalid for the opposition to seize the perceived persecution and turn it into a rallying cry.

Aside from the partisan ire it will surely raise, both parties are likely to be sucked into this blame game. Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, has pointed out that both Republican and Democrat members of Congress were made aware of these techniques as early as 2002, and there were no objections. Hoekstra has publically called for release of the lists of legislators who were told about the questionable interrogation techniques.

Republican John Boehner, Minority Leader in the House, released statements in 2007 detailing who knew what and when concerning the Bush-era CIA tactics. Nancy Pelosi was among those in the know, according to Boehner. Members of Congress in oversight roles during the period included Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Senators Bob Graham and John D. Rockefeller IV. While Pelosi has publically denied having any knowledge of torture techniques used by the CIA, it seems increasingly unlikely she was entirely in the dark on the matter.

You can just tell this whole, sad mess is going to continue spiraling out of control unless someone squashes the whole thing. The worst part is everyone is currently scrambling to cover their asses instead of entering into a serious talk about what sorts of interrogation techniques should be used by the CIA.

I do not endorse waterboarding. I do not believe it is something that we should engage in, and it appears that the American people agree. To this end President Obama has sworn to suspend use of the tactic and I applaud his decision, even though I worry that this might make us look weaker to our enemies. Perhaps the best move would have been to suspend the torture without telling anyone, thus allowing the perceived threat to create some of the desired pressure. Unfortunately that option went out the window a while ago. That move would have required some bi-partisanship, a state of affairs we are sadly lacking in these days. Perhaps we can take a first step in the right direction by letting the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finish its work before the “Truth Commission” has a chance to start burning witches (and possibly most of Washington D.C.).

The sad part is Americans are fired up for the wrong reasons.

In the last 24 hours we’ve learned that Congressional leaders and the Treasury Department knew far in advance that executive compensation plans were still in place at companies that received significant amounts of federal aid. Some members of Congress boldface lied about their knowledge concerning the dilution of a provision to eliminate just the sort of compensation that AIG supplied to their top executives.

So what did Congress do? They tried to crucify Ed Liddy, a man who’s essentially a government volunteer, albeit a highly qualified one. A veteran executive officer, he organized the restructuring of Sears Roebuck and Company and shepherded Allstate Insurance through the difficult days after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Liddy is an example of solid leadership and accountability. It is because of Liddy’s stellar record in the business world that in September of 2008 Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson tapped him to run AIG.

Edward Liddy should have run screaming from AIG (like so many Obama appointees have run screaming from the Treasury Department). Instead he decided to take up the challenge of a lifetime.

Working for one dollar, Mr. Libby is now tackling the largest corporate disaster in history, and has done so in order to help his country. Congress, in the sort of sheer cold-blooded treachery no one should find shocking, attacked the new CEO of AIG at the first convenient moment.

Liddy did not negotiate these fat contracts, nor does he benefit from them personally. These deals were in place long before his involvement with the company. While he was aware of their existence, he did nothing to hide them. When speaking to Congressional leaders he was erudite and forthcoming, offering his reasons for honoring these contacts. He did not pass blame on to Congress, who originally had provisions in place to deal with this sort of compensation. He stood up for his decisions and calmly explained himself.

Congressional leaders did the exact opposite.

The sad part is those elected officials, the most powerful legislators in the country, were asleep at the switch for the umpteenth time in the last 50 days. Blame can even be extended beyond that, as many of the power players in this mess were in office during the last two years of the Bush administration. While President Obama was on the campaign trail preaching change, his party was in control of the legislative branch of the Federal government, right when everything went to hell.

I do not want to push all the blame on to the Democrats, but people do seem to forget that they were in charge of Congress as the initial stages of collapse began in companies like Bank of America and Fannie May. Aggressive loaning policies set in place by the Democrats through bodies like Fannie May met with Republican deregulation of banking via the dissolution of Glass-Steagle and the whole thing went bust. Trust me, there’s enough blame to go around here, if the politicians would simply fess up.

But have we heard any of those Congressional Democrats apologize for missing the warning signs after their election in 2006? No. Are there any signs of remorse from the Republicans, who presided over an economic boom of increasingly dubious origin? Of course not. It is simply easier to target men like Edward Liddy, and that is what they will continue to do, as long as we let them.

President Bush had to declare a state of emergency to help the District of Columbia pay for this gross spectacle. This is the first time in history that a state of emergency has been declared at the federal level for an event not centered on a natural emergency. This hurricane is human made.

We’re over a trillion dollars in the hole. We’re most likely about to add another trillion to that tally. Does this big top inauguration even remotely match the dire portrait the Obama administration has painted of the American economy? What possible sense does this insane spectacle make?

Bread and circuses, my friends.

This phrase first appears in the ancient Roman work the Satires of Juvenal. In case you are not familiar with the passage to which I refer, here it is:
“… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: panem et circenses (bread and circuses).”

This is a very astute observation of how easily people can be cowed by simple pleasures. We will abandon our rights and freedoms for entertainment and nourishment. At a time when we should be questioning Barack Obama’s sudden reversals and double-talk (paying any attention to the Blagojevich fiasco?), we instead buy commemorative Obama inauguration plates and designer Obama t-shirts. We gather and say we deserve to have such an unnecessarily decadent circus of a party, and for no reason at all.

Instead of addressing the very real concerns the political left have with Rick Warren swearing in Obama, the carnies of Washington simply brought in more pro-gay groups. What does this have to do with addressing the bigotry of Rick Warren? Bishop Robinson was given some introductory prayer? This is supposed to fix the problem?

No. It isn’t. Bread and circuses. Keep the people distracted and confused. This has been the Obama mission since day one, and unfortunately it has not gone the way of “campaign rhetoric” like many of the Obama campaign’s criticisms of Bush’s policies.

Whatever one’s opinion of the man’s business decisions, it is impossible to deny that Conrad Black is an impressively talented and accomplished writer. I now make a point to read his articles whenever he publishes. I would recommend that anyone who is confused about the current financial crisis gripping the United States read Ignorance and Upheaval. It is one of the most succinct descriptions I have read of how we ended up in this current economic quagmire.

In the course of following Mr. Black’s writing I came across one of his most recent essays, A ‘rather successful’ president with some serious achievements under his belt. In the piece Mr. Black does an excellent job of laying out the merits of our current president’s time in the White House. He points out that a “cataract of sniggering and brickbats may safely be expected as serious analysis of the presidency of George W. Bush begins, but it will not last: The historical standing of departing presidents tends to rise as emotionalism subsides.”

I find this particularly true, and there is a reason for it that might not be so obvious to all of us.

George Walker Bush is the first Internet Age president.

I can hear the protests already.

I know President Clinton is widely regarded as the first Commander and Chief in the Internet Age. This argument does have some merit, if you manage to forget the state of people’s interaction with the Internet throughout most of Clinton’s time in office. While the structure was there, no one was really using the Internet, at least not the way it is used now. In short, like all other presidents before him, William Jefferson Clinton never had to deal with YouTube.

The best illustration I can think of brings me back to college. I was a freshman in the fall of 1996 and distinctly remember how having an Ethernet card in my computer (even just having a computer) made me a unique commodity in dorm life. In fact, most of the first friends I made in college were the precious few students taking advantage of this fantastic and ever-connected gateway to the Internet.

Now, I would like you to think back to the ‘90s. How many of you had an e-mail address in 1996? How many of you had a computer? Then, there is the matter of connectivity. Before 2000 I could count on one hand the number of people I knew with a dedicated Internet connection. I myself used dial-up until 2001. As 2008 wraps up, I’ll bet I could walk down the block and be hard-pressed to find a family without a DSL line or Broadband modem.

Heck, forget computers, those clunky, wire-ridden desktop paperweights from 2004. Did you have a WiFi laptop? How did we drink coffee at Starbucks without the Internet to keep us company?

Did you even have a cell phone, let alone the wireless multimedia monsters many of us carry in our pockets nowadays? I have a HTC G1, and the little thing is at least as much a functioning laptop as the first portable computer I used to lug around.

So yes, we all are loaded down with Internet-driven gizmos now – where is this going? The Internet, with its global reach and growing audience, coupled with widespread access to increasingly inexpensive and impressively reliable computer technology birthed a nigh on infinite observation and criticism engine. This vast information network, once the plaything of the military and scientific community, is available to the masses. The printing press, a machine that revolutionized communication and learning the world over, is a child’s toy compared to the Internet.

Ten years ago, could you have read the Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, Le Monde, Jordan Times and Asahi Shimbun (without going to the newsstand, praying all the papers were there and paying for each one) and then signed into your blog and posted your thoughts about world events? With a click of the send button your observations are available to people in Chicago, New York, Paris, Amman and Tokyo. Congratulations, you have a potential news-reading audience that William Randolph Hurst would have envied. The best part is Google (along with many others) does it all for free.

Now you do not need an education, or an editor, to become a publisher. Please do not take this in a negative or degrading way. I am, after all, a part of this phenomenon. I do not need a newspaper or book publisher to get my ideas out to the public now. This revolutionary tool places voluminous libraries of information at my beck and call, and gifts me with an infinite amount of print space through which I may express myself. The Internet is a marvelous contribution to humanity’s quest to understand and relate to one another.

The sheer power of this newborn entity also begs a question, though. When this juggernaut of opinion is aimed at someone, what sort of effect will it have? Will it turn a good person into a saint? Not likely, since no news sells like bad news.

The masses thrive on gossip and innuendo, the peccadilloes of the famous and powerful. So, it seems to me, the Internet, being an expression of the multitudes, would blossom with megabyte after megabyte of negative attention directed towards the most visible in our world’s society.

I am not writing this because I am jaded with humanity. Put a jeweler’s loupe to a diamond and imperfections will magically appear. It stands to reason that staring at someone all the time, incessantly recording his or her movements, will, sooner or later, yield faults. If you start out looking for something to dislike, well, the process gets a whole lot easier. This whole procedure is greatly accelerated if the observers do not personally know their subject. It becomes strangely painless to say and write terrible things about other human beings.

President Bush has been a focus of attention of the Internet in a serious way since 9/11. I am not saying I agree with all the decisions President Bush has made during his tenure, but almost regardless of what he did, there was going to be a crushing wave of criticism, and not necessarily from the television and newspaper pundits. It is worthwhile to note that this criticism does not have nationality, either. It is as easy for a Brazilian to watch and comment on the president of the United States as it is for me.

I am sure that Conrad Black can attest to this, as his articles for the National Post are published on the Internet. Anyone with a keyboard can easily attack him, using his popularity to make their comments (often snide and without factual evidence, as blind comments are often wont to be) available to a much wider audience than they could garner themselves.

As it became easy to follow, in disturbing minutia, the exploits of the office of the President, obsession with the man grew exponentially. Once Bush is out of office and back on his ranch in the little town of Crawford, Texas, public opinion will become less harsh, if only because he is no longer in the limelight. Perhaps then a serious examination of his time in office might begin.

I wonder how President-elect Obama will fare in this dog-eat-dog world of 24/7 Internet-based obsession? He and his team used the power of the Internet to dazzling success during his campaign, easily routing John McCain on the virtual field of competition. Will this mean that President Obama will be able to harness the terrific power of the Internet to further his goals, or will it fall back on him like a collapsing ocean wave, bringing America’s next president’s poll numbers down, much like his predecessor?

I have always been a firm believer that in order to be a good American, one must respect the person elected to serve as our President. I congratulate Barack Obama on his enormous achievement. I sympathize with John McCain, who fell short of his goal. He deserves much more. I wish to address our current President, George Bush, who has worked hard to keep our fine nation safe. Thank you President Bush.

Please take the time to read Conrad Black’s article:

Ignorance and Upheaval

The U.S. presidential election campaign that is now finally ending (the 2012 campaign will begin on Thursday, and will probably cost $2-billion) has been so entangled with economic, racial and ethical questions, that it has obscured the most stark ideological differences between candidates since Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980.

Senator Barack Obama, who has the most liberal voting record of any current U.S. senator, is well to the left, according to all polls, of most Americans. He is surging toward the feat recently achieved by Stephen Harper in Canada: Being elected although most of his countrymen are ideologically closer to his chief opponent.

The voters have been heavily distracted by the financial crisis. Mr. Obama has displayed an almost sphinx-like discretion on the subject — while John McCain has produced a daily kaleidoscope of hip-shooting responses and King Lear-like promises of vengeance on the greedy financiers and sloppy regulators.

Yet, during it all, there has not, as far as I have observed, been a single plausible explanation of what has happened to the financial system. Congress required that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac direct 52% of their backing to the homes of low-income, higher-risk, mortgagees. It did the same, though not to the same extent, with the commercial banking system. Alan Greenspan co-operated with Congress by holding the prime rate at 1% for almost a year, facilitating the issuance of trillions of dollars of low-yield, high-risk mortgages.

The financial industry bundled these together in consolidated debt obligations (CDOs), whereby investors could buy in at different rates and risk levels. The CDOs were in turn backed by default swaps, insurance policies that gave the securities a (false as it turned out) semblance of reliability. Meanwhile, investment banks were permitted to borrow up to 30 times their asset bases, three times the leverage permitted to lending banks. It was a house of cards on an open terrace on a summer day.

Early signs of a slight business downturn shook loose some of the most vulnerable mortgages, and the effects rolled through to the insurance companies. Banks marked down their asset values, and to avoid being afoul of Federal Reserve-imposed ratios (which are based on market prices), had to seek more capital at declining issue prices, diluting existing shareholders. Market shapers and astute analysts short-sold the CDOs and bank shares, (i.e., sold them without first buying them, forcing down the market price, and then covering their sales by buying at a lower price).

The process broadened and accelerated, as this kind of crash always does. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, scrambled around like one-armed paper-hangers, saving some companies (Bear Stearns) and not others (Lehman).

Very late, they improvised an impractical plan for buying up to $700-billion of the defaulted real estate-related debt, but the CDOs are not easily divided and the federal government had no capability for negotiating such transactions. And so it was agreed that the government would, as it did in the 1930’s, buy preferred shares in the encumbered institutions at discounted prices, and let the banks work it out with their clients and debtors.

The foregoing analysis makes no pretense to economic sophistication, but I saw no evidence that either candidate is capable of giving even this minimalist description of what has panicked the country, discomfited the whole financial world and caused foreigners to resume the habit that began with the U.S. rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, and blame everything bad on America. The collapse of the United States was jubilantly announced by the international left, probably at least two centuries prematurely. As McCain flailed wildly, Obama sagely allowed the crisis to reflect badly on Republicans generally, though the Clinton administration was certainly not blameless.

Obama is essentially offering the white population of the United States, in exchange for his residency in the White House, an end to the racial guilt complex that’s formed over 145 years of quasi-segregation of African- Americans, following what Lincoln called “the bondman’s 250 years of unrequited toil.” And as a bonus, this will also be the end of the hackneyed and checkered spokesmanship for the black community of scoundrels such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel and the Obama family’s recently discharged pastor, Jeremiah Wright.

Over the last 60 years in the United States, the governing party has usually changed after two terms. The stylistic shortcomings of the second Bush administration, McCain’s blunderbuss campaign and the financial crisis have all reinforced that likelihood. Under the Mephistophelean influence of the most biased media coverage of a U.S. election since Barry Goldwater in 1964, Obama’s peculiar associations have been downplayed and McCain has been portrayed as serving up a smear-job for raising them at all.

Twenty years of listening, each Sunday, to the demented ravings of Father Jeremiah; the relationship with unrepentant former terrorist Bill Ayers, as they squandered $100-million of the late Walter Annenberg’s money teaching Marxism but not raising test scores in Chicago; Obama’s relations with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn), now being investigated for extensive voter-registration fraud in 14 states; and Obama’s provenance from the roughest, crudest, political machine in the country, the Democratic Party that has ruled Chicago and its suburbs for 80 years; all have been ignored or glossed over, and have received less investigative attention than Joe the Plumber’s tax returns or Sarah Palin’s wardrobe.

In policy terms, McCain would lower taxes and spending and retain individual choice in medical care. Obama would “cut the taxes of 95% of Americans,” by which he means that the 40% of Americans who do not pay income taxes would receive “refundable tax credits” from the 60% who do, most of whom would receive tax increases. He has tried to sugar the pill of simply taking money from people who have earned it and giving it to people who haven’t by clothing it in the jolly and progressive phrase: “spreading the wealth around.” A tax increase at the start of a recession is playing Russian roulette with all chambers loaded.
Obama will also promote unionization of the work force, thus advancing that retrograde and declining cause of the departure of much of U.S. manufacturing to cheap-labour countries in the first place. If Obama takes his economic advice from Warren Buffett and Paul Volcker, catastrophe will be avoided. If he actually carries out his program, he will be the worst president since Warren Harding, and the most (inadvertently) destructive since James Buchanan brought on the Civil War.

It has been such a complicated election: A centre-right country is running some risk of a quirky and ill-starred lurch to the left under its first non-white president. Whatever else it may have become, the United States is a land of surprises.