This could be good news . . . .

A little good news from the ever-reliable people over at Alternet.org

Holy Cow: Top Dems Are Serious About Investigating Bush's Criminal Acts

By Jason Leopold, Consortium News via Alternet. Posted January 26, 2009.

To the surprise of progressives and anger of the GOP, leading Dems support investigations.

"As President Barack Obama reverses some of ex-President George W. Bush’s most controversial “war on terror” policies, a consensus seems to be building among Democratic congressional leaders that further investigations are needed into Bush’s use of torture and other potential crimes.

On Wednesday – the first working day of the Obama administration – Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would support funding and staff for additional fact-finding by the Senate Armed Services Committee, which last month released a report tracing abuse of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib to Bush’s Feb. 7, 2002, decision to exclude terror suspects from Geneva Convention protections.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, who issued that report, echoed Reid’s comments, saying “there needs to be an accounting of torture in this country.” Levin, D-Michigan, also said he intends to encourage the Justice Department and incoming Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate torture practices that took place while Bush was in office."

OK, first off, this certainly appears to be good news. If there's to be any such a thing as justice at all in this country, then people who criminally enacted a regime of capital-T Torture ought to be brought before a court of law to account for their actions. But I have to say that it's a sad day in America when there's even any DEBATE over whether or not people who have admitted to authorizing waterboarding ought, or ought not, be investigated and potentially tried in court. Still, at least some of the Democratic "leadership" in Congress is now saying some of the right things, in this debate we shouldn't even be having . . . as opposed to much of the last eight years, during which Democratic "leaders" said the wrong thing in debates we shouldn't have even been having.

On the other hand, this is the Democratic "leadership" in Congress. Harry Reid has proven again and again that when he sees the right thing to do, he runs as far from it as possible, and uses the exemplar as instructive of how to achieve its opposite. As for Speaker Pelosi, I'm sorry - she's a weak leader. It's a good sign that top Congressional Dems are saying some of the right things, but I'll believe in these investigations when I see them. If the past is any indication, they'll probably tap Scooter Libby or Darth Cheney's former top aide, David Addington, to run the investigation.

Color me skeptical.