Unfortunately, the opportunity to Impeach President GW Bush along with his criminal associates has passed us by. Over these last eight years, the Bush Administration has exercised its Executive authority in numerous ways (i.e. warrantless wiretaps; torture; renditions; etc.) that invited charges of High Crimes and Misdemeanors to be Constitutionally tested. Yet, the cowardly Congress of that period abdicated its responsibility to pursue such a remedy in real time.

It would be difficult for these same spineless sycophants in the House and Senate leadership to now hold Bush & Co. retroactively accountable for their crimes - unless, of course, they care to invite prosecution for dereliction of their own sworn responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution.

The assumption of authority to declare anyone to be an "enemy combatant" as a pretext to depriving these individuals of fundamental rights is perhaps among the most egeregious of crimes committed by this Administration. If there was any true justice in the world, the correct scenario to now effectively address this particular impeachable offense would unfold thusly:

** Noon, Tuesday, Jan 20th, 2009: Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, declaring by oath to uphold the Constitution (as presently understood/implemented by our Government.)

** 12:05pm (estimated): President Barack Obama, using the Executive's recently assumed power to make such a declaration, announces his official determination that GW, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, and other culpable characters are "enemy combatants."

** 12:10pm (estimated): GW, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, etc., are "rendered" to an unknown offshore location where they will be held interminably; absent any habeus corpus or other rights enumerated in the Magna Carta or our own Constitution as written.

**12:15pm: Barack Obama repeats the oath of Office in a symbolic, poignant - yet remarkably substantive - recognition that this new Administration and those to follow will abide the Constitution as given to us by the Framers, as opposed to continuing any allegiance to the bastard morphrodite presented to us by Bush & Co. with the concurrence of the milquetoast 109th/100th Congress.

** Post-110th Congress: We never hear from or see GWB, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, etc., ever again.

This is not merely a rhetorical suggestion. Imagine, if you will, what life has been like for any innocent "enemy combatants" who have been snared in this diabolical system of "justice" as created by Bush and his enabling apologists. Imagine what life has been like for the families of such innocents who wonder where their loved one and, in many cases, their family's breadwinner has been "rendered" to - or if they even remain alive, for God's sake. It is hardly too much to ask that Bush & Co. experience the same level of justice provided to the most aggrieved victims of their criminal debasement of Human Rights.

Ain't going to happen, I know. But I dream of this precedent being established wherein any future President would think twice before assuming tyrannical powers for him/herself to which he/she would not wish to be personally subject. The democratic fairness of our new President performing such an exercise in justice on Inauguration Day would represent a quite unimpeachable change we could believe in.