An incomming Democratic President might well prefer to let the matter rest, the wire taps are far from the most eggregious criminal act the administration has committed. If they were to go after anything it would be the torture. But I don’t think that Bush/Cheney will give them that choice.

I expect that Bush will attempt to pardon most of the criminal behavior. The act of issuing a pardon will itself generate the political imperative to find something to prosecute them for. The Bushies are sloppy and incompetent, I don’t think that they have the remotest chance of granting a pardon that covers all their crimes.

In particular a pardon cannot cover future crimes, the constitution uses the past tense, the President has no authority to pardon ongoing or future crimes. The ongoing wiretap programs will thus fall outside the scope of the pardon.

I am expecting the administration to cook up some “emergency” in order to cancel the 2008 elections. Something that people fear and don’t understand, like, oh, H5N1, and how to “protect” the public, there will have to be huge quarantines that will last weeks and months. So then bush, or more likely cheney, becomes “president for life” as some mocking merger of banana republic and pro-life rhetoric.

When the so-called “patriot” act was being debated, some anthrax letters got mailed to targets in the US. If you read the book Amerithrax, you’d come to the conclusion that the perpetrators were right wingers. What politicians got sent these letters? Only democrats. What politicians didn’t get anthrax letters? Republicans (and no anthrax tainted letter was ever sent to the whitehouse). Pearle stated that folks in the whitehouse were taking Cipro starting 9/12. American military anthrax could be treated with Cipro, Soviet military anthrax (which is what Saddam’s folks would have been trained to make) cannot be treated with any antibiotic. What newspapers got sent anthrax letters? NY Times (of which Ann Coulter said “the only thing McVeigh did wrong was that he didn’t go to the NY Times building”), the NY Post (who reported the Coulter quote) and the National Enquirer. Only the NYTimes has any distribution outside the US. What newspapers didn’t get anthrax? WSJ, USA Today and International Herald Tribune (who have distribution outside the US). What TV networks got anthrax? NBC. What TV networks didn’t get anthrax? Fox, CNN, or anything with viewers outside the US.

We’ve been down this road before.

And you can shove the National Review where the sun don’t shine – they couldn’t tell the truth to save their souls. Heck, they’re still printing Iraq war supporters, which at this late stage is proof positive that they stone cold liars.

Actual statements on the issue. Several of them have said explicitly that it is illegal. No one saying they will continue has cited anything resembling evidence.

They can’t just continue it—they’ve got to appoint an Attorney General & head of OLC that will tell them it’s legal. I am having a hard time coming up with a plausible liberal Democrat for those positions who would endorse the theory that the President is not actually bound by any laws in wartime.

The illegal wiretaps are used by Karl Rove and Republican sympathizers in the NSA to discredit the Democratic nominee, Edmund Muskie style.

Then (since we’re presuming that they fail) I guess (f) would have to follow.

Except Bush will have pardoned the higher-ups, so a bunch of low level right wing spooks end up rotting in jail for a while, converting to fundyism, and getting talk shows (or whatever the Web 3.0 equivalent is) upon release.

Now I’m certainly not ADVOCATING this option – I’m STRONGLY in favor of your option f – but I do tend to think it’s the most likely (probably without the prosecutions).

You forgot Poland Reagan.

Ok, comparing non-war-related policies from Clinton to those from Bush II, I’ll bite. (If you include war-related, you need to compare to LBJ.)

Both practiced extraordinary rendition.
Both increased the harshness of the War on (some) Drugs.
Both used warrantless wiretaps.
Both used supposed-to-be-private info to discredit political enemies. (FBI files, Valerie Wilson)
Both attempted to use the regulatory process to reward friends and punish enemies. (Power plant maintenance/upgrade issue, Klamath Dam issue).

I’ll leave it at this: you are clearly not involved in the gun-related civil rights issues.

List of some illegal anti-gun actions by the Clinton administration

I’d second rilkefan in going with a modified version of this one, to wit: the new administration will continue wiretapping, but comply with FISA while doing so. Since FISA warrants were traditionally easy to get, and were issued retroactively by a secret court, any sane domestic wiretapping program could proceed under its auspices. I think FISA itself is bad from a civil liberties point of view (and indeed the stinking hypocrites of samchevre’s ilk were shrieking about how evil it was when the Clenis was in office), but it’s practically Utopian compared to flouting federal laws when one is Constitutionally mandated that they be faithfully executed. Or compared to ignoring legal subpoenas, for that matter.