Mukasey/Durham Confusion

I need some help understanding the recent appointing of an 'outside' prosecutor to the destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes.

First I suppose i'll run down what i know of this so far and then please help me see what i have wrong or incomplete:

1. Mukasey, someone who has replaced Alberto Gonzo as the AG, is in charge of deciding who will prosecute this case.

2. Mukasey is connected to the current administration and there is NO WAY that he took this action without the blessing of the current administration.

3. He chooses someone that has a fierce reputation for achieving success in his prosecutions and that the public seems generally satisfied with.

4. They use a term OUTSIDE PROSECUTOR which is conspicuously close to SPECIAL PROSECUTOR but with a totally different meaning.

5. The OUTSIDE PROSECUTOR is not independent, but rather, is simply going to lead the DOJ investigation.

6. The investigation has been narrowed to only be allowed to deal with the issue of the 2 tapes that have been reported destroyed.

We are supposed to be happy about this?

I am the only one not convinced in the slightest that this is ANYTHING more than an extension of a coverup??????????

Please help me to understand why this is supposed to be a good thing, because as i see it, it is just more of the same. More of the 'We can do anything we want' attitude of this admin.

The prosecutor's boss is MuKasey and Mukasey's boss is the bush. Notice no one is looking into the original crime - torture. As far as I know, torture has never been legalized. The bush broke the law and everyone is covering for him.

but since it is an election year, they need to appear "tuff on terra" and will let that go as well.

:argh:

This gang always thinks the rules don't apply to them.

Will Congress do anything about it?

Rec

Remember the Plame investigation. You can appoint a mountain lion to investigate, but if it never leaves it's cage....

full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

move along.

cutting through the crap and seeing it for what it is!

as in "outside" DC and "outside" the district that would have normally taken the case.


Some people then heard "outside" and put a different meaning to it...and you're right, the "outside" part was the word people were supposed to key in on....

"outside" makes it sound as if Durham is "outside" the group...independent of the group...when he isn't at all.

I say it this way because it is a common trick....to use language in such a way that people think one thing when they hear it but later learn another meaning of the word was intended.

As you point out, he's a U.S. attorney, he works for the DOJ, so he works for Mukasey...and as Bush is so fond of pointing out, "these U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President."


Your number 3 is another example of another kind of trick. By choosing someone that all sides can feel good about - whether the basis for that good feeling is real or manufactured - then no one can later claim the fix was in or that they investigation was bias...afterall, EVERYONE thought him a good choice and now, suddenly, there are complaints? You praised his character one minute and now that he says nothing criminal happened you call him names?

I'm not saying Durham will be a toady...just saying it has been known to happen exactly as above. Where a seemingly unbiased choice turns out to be very biased in the end.


Number 6 - I think it smells. Why so narrow? When nothing about those tapes is narrow in scope.


I'm in wait and see mode myself...leaning on the side of... it's just more smoke up the butt.