I had no idea til now.

As for it's over.

It became "over" when an entire branch of govt, under assault as inferior in relevancy to a growing Unitary Executive, stood by and did nothing about it.

Not even after seeing the entire DOJ scandal excavated, revealing just how hollowed out the judiciary is, as well. And how controlled by partisan politics.

And congress has done nothing. Nice letters. but nothing.

Presidential Candidates are fine with this. They are fine with no accountability -- or you would hear THAT being a campaign issue. It's not. Instead faux things like "Chnage" and "Experience".

Sen Obama went so far, months ago, as to saying that Impeachment should not be taken lightly. That Bush/Cheney indeed had done some bad things, but that we should make sure that we reserve Impeachment for extraordinary crimes against our COnstitution. (And what, I wonder, would those be  -- with the threshhold for "serious crimes" not met according to the Accomdationist Senator who wants to bridge America.

It's over when our COngress votes to uphold domestic spying. It's over when FISA is reauthorized -- and over when a Democratic Party Senate Majority Leader schemes to disregard the hold on legislation in committee placed by a fellow Democratic Senator.

it's over when your Speaker of the House condemns a member of her party for stating with hyperbole that Bush has made a game of killing people overseas.

It's over when both those above events, in two different chambers, happen on the very same day -- which they did.

But you won't hear about that.

It's over because we're now considered a Torture State by our friends Canada.

And it's over because we our elected leadership -- and our Presidential Candidates -- do not make it their high priority to restore Checks and Balances and the rule of law, by voting NOW, vs lofty promises of actions to be taken only AFTER ascension to the Presidencial throne in Jan 2009.

The election might as well be about Reagan, or Nixon, or Tigers in the San Francisco Zoo. Becasue it's certainly not about fixing this country NOW -- not after one's annointment.

America is broke and broken. And that's a real shame. But by all means carry on Daou and other worthless homepage recommended diary content.