Foolishness, Not Evil Genius, Drove 'Rove-o-Lution'

Group wants torture allegations investigated

(NEWSER) - Human Rights Watch wants George W. Bush and his top officials prosecuted for war crimes and criminal conspiracy, the Guardian reports. In a new report, the US group calls for foreign governments to move forward with the prosecution if the Obama administration does not investigate. In addition to allegations of torture and prisoner mistreatment, the report also accuses the Bush administration's legal team of conspiring to prepare invalid opinions authorizing such abuses. More»

President 'wanted to show who was in charge,' he writes in 'Decision Points'

(NEWSER) - George Bush seriously considered ditching Dick Cheney for the 2004 election, he writes in his memoir, Decision Points. Cheney offered to step aside and Bush—seeking "to demonstrate I was in charge"—explored the possibility of replacing him with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist before deciding to ask Cheney to stay, he writes in a copy of the memoir obtained by the New York Times . More»

New document claims releasing them was seen as 'politically impossible'

(NEWSER) - The Bush White House knew that hundreds of early Gitmo detainees were innocent, but refused to release them because the admission would weaken support for the war in Iraq, according to a new document obtained by the Times of London . The charge, by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was made in a declaration in support of a lawsuit for a Gitmo detainee. Wilkerson claims that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees had been picked up, not by the US military, but by Afghans and Pakistanis for a bounty, and there was no evidence against them. But they saw it as "politically impossible to release them." More»

Bushies' conjurings 'know few bounds'

(NEWSER) - The simultaneous arrival of Karl Rove's memoir and Liz Cheney's "right-wing noise machine" means the "revisionist floodgates have opened," writes Frank Rich for the New York Times , a "rewriting of history that knows few bounds." And while Rove's book better passes for fiction and Cheney's "al-Qaeda Seven" attack is a McCarthy-esque smear at best, the Bushies' "non-reality-based schtick" is "relentless and shameless." More»

'Bring 'em on' from George Bush makes the list

(NEWSER) - David Sirota culls the top 10 quotes of the decade that speak to the nation's shortcomings. See the full list at Salon here . A sampling:

• "It doesn't matter." Dick Cheney, 2006, when asked about polls showing a majority of Americans opposed the Iraq war. It's a "sign the ruling class truly does not care about the demands of the public," writes Sirota.
• "I didn't campaign on the public option." President Obama, December 2009. His presidential platform, however, promised the chance to "enroll in (a) new public plan."