It was the best of pundits and it was the worst of pundits. Writing in his column of December 11, 2008, Bush apologist Jay Ambrose said:

Bush did make mistakes. But it’s hardly necessary to be a fan of all his tactics to understand that they were no worse than all kinds of transgressions by Congress and past presidents, that they came in the midst of a time that was very frightening, that the perils of some of them have been vastly exaggerated and that the worst have been softened or are gone. Safety has in fact ensued from certain of these measures, although this we should know: We are not out of trouble yet.
Ambrose photo from Rocky Mountain News

"No worse than all kinds of transgressions by Congress and past presidents", huh? Here’s what Glenn Greenwald had to say on December 12 on Bill Moyers’ Journal:

BILL MOYERS: You talked about Iraq, the present-going war. But then you come back and use the term "war" in response to a war on the Constitution?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, if you look at things that people have said who are responsible for what I call the war on the Constitution, before 9/11, what you find is that these ideas, including removing Saddam Hussein, but beyond that, wildly expanding executive power, erecting a wall of secrecy around our government such that transparency is virtually non-existent. Empowering the president to ignore literally laws that are passed by Congress in the name of national security.

These ideas were implemented after 9/11 and using the 9/11 attacks as justification. But the ideologues who implemented them, Dick Cheney and David Addington and John Yoo and the whole cast of right-wing ideologues who fill the Justice Department, have been advocating these ideas, which for decades were fringe and discredited ideas long before 9/11 and just like the idea of remove Saddam Hussein, they were empowered to institute them as a result of these crises.

BILL MOYERS: Well, you were saying they were discredited. But all wartime presidents expand the powers of the office. Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon. I mean, there’s something inherent in war and the expansion of powers. Are you saying that Bush and Cheney took it further?

GLENN GREENWALD: I’m saying they took it to an entirely different level. What we have, in the last eight years, is not merely a case of individual and isolated law breaking. It’s a declaration of war on the whole idea of a law itself, on the idea that our political leaders are constrained in any way by the limitations of the American people imposed through our Congress. The rule of law has essentially ceased to exist. And that I do think is quite new.
Greenwald photo from Art of the Possible

As Greenwald is alluding, multiple court cases have shown the Bush Administration has gone far beyond any powers allotted by the Constitution or by Congress. Further, multiple studies have shown that the torture of detainees has served to recruit more terrorists than US forces have managed to defeat in military action. In short, these policies have made us more vulnerable, rather than more safe, as Ambrose is trying to assert.

Finally, though, Ambrose thinks that efforts at prosecution will fall short because Democrats are just as guilty as Republicans in approving these attacks on the rule of law. Speaking for many of us who want to see the rule of law apply to everyone in government, Greenwald addressed that question very well:

BILL MOYERS: But how do you investigate your own party? The fact of the matter is Democrats knew about this wire tapping without warrants that conducted by the telecoms. And then they voted to give the telecom communications companies immunity. Barack Obama opposed giving them immunity and then reversed himself on it. So how does an incumbent president or an incumbent party in Congress investigate itself?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I think what you’re getting at is the reason why the political class on a bipartisan basis is coming together to say, "Oh, no, we don’t want to investigate these crimes. We think it’s best to let it go." It’s not because they’re being magnanimous. It’s not because they think it’s important that Barack Obama be able to fix the economy undistracted by the controversies that would be created.

It’s because exactly as you said. Top Democrats were complicit in these crimes and assented to them. I mean, it wasn’t just the warrantless eavesdropping.

In 2002, as the WASHINGTON POST documented, Nancy Pelosi was brought to the CIA and along with Jane Harman and Bob Graham and Jay Rockefeller, the key Intelligence Committee Senators, were told about the torture program that the CIA had implemented, that we were going to water board and had water boarded certain suspects, that we were going to do things like hypothermia and stress positions and forced nudity and sleep deprivation.

All of the tactics that we’ve always said characterized tyrannies that used torture. That we were going to start using them ourselves, even though they clearly violate both international and domestic law. And according to all public reports, and they’re not denied by the participants, every single Democrat in that session either quietly assented to it or actively approved of it.

And so the question then becomes, well, as a matter of political reality, how is Barack Obama going to encourage investigations of crimes to be undertaken when the leading members of his own party were, if not-

BILL MOYERS: Good question.

GLENN GREENWALD: -participants were certainly complicit? And there are things that he could do. He could appoint, as I said, an independent prosecutor and say take this road to wherever it leads. And if it leads to leading Democrats who you think have criminal liability, so be it.

So be it, indeed. It’s not politics, Jay, it’s the rule of law. Glenn understands and you don’t.