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.

Three cheers for common sense.

Of course I did have the pleasure of watching the Democrat Senate hem and haw as they decided what to do with the ‘tainted’ appointee. Getting to see Harry Reid make an ass out of himself by threatening to physically bar the junior Senator from the Senate chamber was particularly amusing. Then all the madness with signatures from the Secretary of State, an ancient ritual that was required in an age before telephones, was the icing on the cake.

What the Democrats fail to see (and they are not alone in this) is that Roland Burris has done nothing wrong. Blagojevich was definitely thinking on his toes this time. Burris is so clean it is practically criminal. The funny thing is that something similar to this happened in recent history.

This whole affair reminds me of the scandal-ridden transition of leadership in the House of Representatives in 1998. Robert Livingston, the new Speaker, was exposed by Hustler magazine as being involved in an extra-marital affair. This might not have meant much on its own, except Livingston was particularly blunt in his criticism of President Clinton’s illicit liaison with Monica Lewinsky. In an attempt to quell any unrest over immorality in the party the Republicans hunted down the squeaky clean, albeit inexperienced, Dennis Hastert and put him behind the podium.

Once again we have the old shell game. To take attention away from (supposed) impropriety an all too perfect distraction is found. In 1998 it was Hastert, ten years later it is Burris.

It is something of a shame, though, that Roland Burris has been subjected to all this harassment. The man has an excellent record of service on the state level and is a successful lawyer and business owner.

While it might be the intention of Governor Blagojevich to whitewash his lackluster career with this selection, I would remind everyone to see the bigger picture here. Roland Burris is a legally appointed member of the Senate, put into power via an accepted legal system presided over by a legitimate governor. As far as I know, Rod Blagojevich is still the governor of Illinois (charges haven’t even been filed against him yet) and he did his duty to appoint the state’s representative to the US Senate. Blagojevich has been crucified in the court of public opinion, but luckily that is not the kind of justice we in the United States truly seek.

So, until something changes here, the Democrats should be glad they have gotten such a qualified man to fill Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

My fellow Americans, putting a Registered Cook County (Illinois) Democratic Machine-team player in the White House is equivalent to putting a registered sex offender in the castle at Disney Land, or a cocaine addict in a crack house. Almost everyone in Chicago knows about the Chicago Outfit’s long-lasting and undying presence within the Cook County Democratic Machine, via jobs-for-political-work.

If you are wondering if Chicago Outfit cronies still exist in Cook County, just ask the U.S. Government. The U.S. Attorney’s office contended in 2006 that the machine had been rebuilt. Although jobs-for-political-work still are a significant component of the machine, the exchange of lucrative contracts for political contributions, such as documented in the investigation of the Hired Truck Program scandal, probably has eclipsed classical patronage as a tool of machine politics in Cook County. No doubt, plenty of Chicago Outfit cronies have benefited by holding various political jobs within the machine (just ask Barack Obama’s good friend, convicted felon Tony Rezko, who helped the Obamas buy their current home).

Our great nation, the United States of America, is at serious risk of being controlled by the Cook County Democratic Machine, via team player Barack Obama, because of the large numbers of freshly registered voters throughout the entire country, who are too young or distant to know or remember what Cook County government was like when Barack Obama made the conscious decision (he is a Harvard Graduate) to come aboard the Cook County Democratic Machine as a team player.

Chicago was in a bizarre stage in the mid 1980’s, with Organized Crime bosses rampantly controlling city politics and the Democrats refusing to cleanup Cook County. One might ask, why would anyone want to jump into such a bad situation? Based on Barack Obama’s controversial friends of recent, I do not think that he intended to ‘change’ a thing about how Cook County has worked for so long. It is still business as usual in Cook County, though a bit quieter now that the national spotlight is shining on Chicago a bit brighter than usual.

The overwhelming political support that Barack Obama has received from the Cook County Democratic Machine in his race for president is living proof that Barack Obama is their proud and loyal team player. This alone should give Democrats and Independents across the nation a reason to consider voting for Barack Obama very, very carefully.

If you liked this article, please read my previous article, Oprah And The Governor Palin Debacle.