Democrats don't want to touch it because their afraid it will offend wealthy corporate donors and distract from their campaign to unseat Republicans in November. This shortsighted fear obscures the fact that, in the long term, it won't matter who wins this year's elections if the Bush Administration is not held accountable for its crimes. It sets a dangerous precedent for Congress to ignore its duty like this for purely political reasons.

Even if Barack Obama is elected president and follows through with his promise to repeal all the unconstitutional executive orders Bush signed, giving himself the dictatorial powers to commit the crimes that he did, there will be nothing to stop a president in 2017 from just reinstituting them. Even if Obama is able to restore some sanity to government for eight years, treason and murder will remain an option for future administrations. If it happened once, it'll happen again.

Congressional oversight of the Executive Branch isn't a noble tradition that we hope our leaders will be nice enough to honor. It's the law, and if the president, vice-president, and Congress aren't expected to obey the law, then nobody else can be either.

Regan Straley
York