From the making lemons into lemonade file. When Barack Obama appoints his new attorney general (I'm hoping for John Edwards) he should immediately charge him or her with using the new now legal ability of the executive branch to spy on Americans almost without limits to bug all communications by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their aides past and present.

There's ample evidence to suggest they've been working against the interests of the American people. They've worked in concert with nefarious characters who are on our terrorist watch lists like many in Maliki's government in Iraq and let's not forget Ahmed Chalibi who is accused of giving highly classified information to Iran. Under their watch billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of weapons have gone missing in Iraq, much of it suspected to have fallen into the hands of enemy insurgents, possibly even Al Qaeda.

And that's just Iraq. It doesn't take much imagination to suspect what they've been up to behind the scenes and will be with nationals of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  

Once out of office Bush and Cheney will be looking to cash in for all those favors they've doled out to their cronies, many of them overseas.

They also very well may be interested in hamstringing President Obama with backroom deals amounting to treason.

There's plenty of reason to suspect Reagan's people, Bush's father included, had a hand in prompting Iran to declare the weekend before our electon in 1980 that they'd be willing to release our hostages only to leave Carter twisting in the wind. Releasing those hostages the day Reagan took office and his subsequent admission of trading of arms for other hostages in the Iran-Contra scandal seem to be more than just unlikely coincidences. It's where the phrase "October Surprise" originated. 

Further back in history we have Henry Kissinger and Madame Chiang Kai-shek doing Richard Nixon's bidding whispering in the ears of the South Vietnamese negotiators at the Paris Peace Talks in 1968 to reject the peace treaty LBJ put together to end the Vietnam War shortly before our election. Nixon promised them a better deal if he was elected.

There are plenty of reasons to suspect that neocons of Cheney's ilk will do what they can to undermine an Obama administration that has pledged to take American foriegn policy in a different direction from their radical empire model. They are not the kind to just pen whiny op-eds for the WaPo if they can sabotage major iniatives covertly, especially Cheney.
 
In short, they won't be morphing into choir boys, leopards don't change their spots. They also can't very well do without modern communications. 

This survellieince shouldn't be conducted with just an eye to avenge past wrongs. Bush could wave hs magic pardon wand excusing all in his administration for crimes they don't even admit are crimes and haven't even been indicted for before  leaving office obviating that path anyway. The more serious concern in any case is the ongoing danger to not just the Obama administration but to the Republic they pose. Does anybody think they wouldn't try to subvert a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, a transition out of Iraq or a Iranian nuclear deal? 

The new AG can use the new FISA law we find so sour and make lemonade if he or she is able to finally indict, convict and imprison Bush and/or Cheney. I don't much care if they get them on the worst war crimes charges or just petty graft as long as they get them.

There will be several benefits to this. Our standing in the world will rise immediately. President Obama's approval ratings here at home will soar. If the MSM clutchs their pearls and shrieks it will only serve to marginalize them further. Sleazeballs like Curt Weldon and his arms dealings may garner the attention he deserves and earn himself a prison sentence. Most of the Republican party (and not a few Dems too) gulping at the thought of what wiretaps could reveal about them will swing 180 degrees and adopt Ron Paul and Bob Barr langauge when discussing the 4th amendment.  

In the end if Bush and/or Cheney are prosecuted using the new FISA law then in an irony of ironies, you can expect congress to quickly see the "error of their ways" and move to restrict it's use very quickly.

It's a win/ win and makes for a sweet drink from a very sour fruit.

We had the biggest canvass Dems have ever had in IL-13 today organized by Scott Harper's campaign. We canvassed in all 13 townships in the IL-13 thus it was named "13 for the 13th".

About 10 of us had a "stuffing" party last night, putting lit in bags for today's efforts and then bagging and boxing them them into their respective districts. Then we watched "Why We Fight", a documentary about the Iraq War that just makes you want to smack Rumsfeld among others into next week. At campaign HQ I understand they had about 20 interns and the staff up til the wee hours doing the same. In the Will and Cook County areas of the 13th they all did their part.

Today at noon I arrived at the local coffee shop where one of our 3 meetups was kicking off at one. I was supposed to get there at 12:30 but seeing as I had all the lit in my car I figured I'd get there early to set up. Waiting were about 19 young Obama interns and 5 middleage DFA members from the city fired up, ready to go.

By 12:30 Harper's field manager Rich Capparell, a 25 year old kid from PA who lives out of 7 rubbermaid totes and sleeps on a cot in a supporter's spare bedroom, showed up with the walk packets. Rich likes to call himself a "political carny". He's worked all over the midwest the last few years, moving from campaign to campaign in his beat up old Ford pickup truck. Claire McCaskill, Hillary's campaign in IA and MN before he bailed and came to the Obamaland in the Chicago burbs to work for Scott Harper. God knows where he's worked before then. I'll ask him someday when he has the time. Some days, like yesterday he works twenty hours straight, but mostly I guess it's a steady 12 hour day. On a pittance of a salary, he makes a lot less money than your average carny. We have all kinds in that office, Rich still loves Hillary, so do some of the others. But that didn't stop any of them from going to Indiana and canvassing for Obama the Saturday before their primary with all of us because it was good for our campaign.   

Anyway after Rich gave them a 20 minute primer on canvassing, the specific questions to ask, etc. everybody was on their way.

We knocked on doors spreading the word about our coordinated campaign candidates, handing out lit and most importantly figuring out who our voters are, who the gettable voters are and who to ignore.

The point? We can all wring our hands over the purity trolls, the few Hillary supporters who have gone off the deepend and the idiotic media or we can help our candidates run effective winning campaigns. I talked to dozens of voters today. The fourth person I talked to, a 67 year old woman wants to be a precinct committeewoman doing what I did today. She gets it.

I didn't meet one person today and have yet to talk to one in thousands of phonebanking calls or on dozens of other days I've spent canvassing this year who said they will never vote for Obama because of their hurt feelings over Hillary. I HAVE talked to hundreds of people who have told me "I used to be a Republican...", and "if he's the Democrat he has my vote". No one ever mentions PUMA, FISA isn't on their radar and more often than not they say McCain just seems old and weird.

This isn't rocket science, it's good old fashioned politicking like it's been done in this country since George Washington and Ben Franklin wore tricornered hats. It just takes the ability to form words with your mouth, walk and a little practice. And the will to do the work that needs to be done. The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare. To win these races we need to lay the groundwork now. If you wait til after Labor Day we'll lose. Simple as that.

We're doing what needs to be done out here in the Chicago burbs in the 13th district and elsewhere where no one has ever even tried before. We stay up late, give up our weekends to walk miles on sore feet knocking on doors.

The cavalry came when we called for help for Bill Foster in Denny Hastert's old district in March, 700 of them from all over the country in the bitter cold that weekend. They came again today, 19 kids and 5 middleaged men and women from the city to my township alone all looking for a race where they can make a difference. And they are making a difference. All over this country.

We dirty hippies had a saying back in the day: if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. If you're sitting here fretting about PUMAs, single issue FISA trolls or the AP you're part of the problem. Make a difference. Get off your ass and get in the game.