Pro-active immunity. Nice. Or not - really, really not.

Btw, in a similar vein did you see Bruce Fein's piece in the Washington Times earlier this week. A selection: "Jan. 28, 2008, is a date that will live in congressional infamy. Congress surrendered the power of the purse over national security affairs to the White House. President Bush appended a signing statement to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 denying the power of Congress to withhold funds for establishing permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, or to control its oil resources. The statement tacitly averred that Congress was required to appropriate money to support every presidential national security gambit, for example, launching pre-emptive wars anywhere on the planet or breaking and entering homes to gather foreign intelligence ... Congress has taken the Constitution backward more than three centuries to the Stuart monarchs ... The English Bill of Rights of 1688 assailed the last of the Stuart monarchs for subverting the liberties of the Kingdom, "By levying money for and to the use of the Crown by pretense of prerogative for other time and in other manner than the same were granted by Parliament" ... Mr. Bush is now crowned with more power than the Stuart kings."

Yeah, I did see that. Couldn't work up the outrage to get fired up (part of my lack-of-outrage over the signing statements thing is that it is unclear if the President has actually violated the law; in other words, the signing statement says the President doesn't have to obey the law, but it is unclear if Bush goes so far as to actually ACT on the signing statement, as opposed to just saying (via the signing statement) "I don't have to do this." So, according to me, we should get upset when Bush actually puts money forward (contra the express, legal, wishes of Congress) to establish a permanent base in Iraq). But, yeah, it's illegal.

Just FYI, Marty Leiderman at Balkininzation has a rebuttal, arguing that the Justice still doesn't believe that it's previous advice was illegal, so it certainly can't prosecute people for doing things that were legal (in their opinion). I see his logic, but still think that the original Justice opinions were wrong, and (thus) you still have a valid reason to investigate (if not prosecute).