POLITICS

NOT A DIRTY WORD!
But it is in the eye or ear of the beholder.
Embedded in the previous postings are two points about accountability.
Politics and timing.
They seem to play a big part in the planning of any endeavor.
These too, are not dirty words.
Except possibly in the grip of the wielders of power.

But I digress, the particulars are that accountability is part of the process and success of our process. There must be investigations because they are political and because of the timing. The arguments must be held and there is never a better time, especially for politics. But the actual particulars of accountability are what role politics has played and will play and whether they preempted accountability. It is not just a coincidence[*] that Watergate involved the Nixon/Ford administration and their respective views on what is legal and what is political. It is the same characters and the polarity between the president being unitary (Nixon) and accountability (the process) being political (Ford), not to mention subsequent success and failures of economics, war and foreign policy. I won't get into the respective overlap and/or disconnect between committees and their intelligence sharing and responsibilities, but I will note the relation to issues in the current political campaigns and the press for or on the bottom line, the people.
[As usual I have embedded too much in rhetoric, another word that is not dirty, except in how it is used, and in which the administration and probably McCain places its only hope. But the point of politics and timing being important hinges on the process and the administration has been preemptive with too much. Now rhetoric is lost in anachronism, while accountability was lost before September 11th, 2001.]

[*]footnote: "positive polarization" and somewhere there was a political calculus of the Bush impeachment, but this is only the rhetoric and all that is needed in this rhetorical war on aftermath and preempting of hope.