During an MSNBC discussion of Blagogate with GOPliar Ron Christie, Ari Melber of The Nation did a brilliant job of turning the discussion to the crimes of the Bush-Cheney administration. Naturally, Christie freaked out and warned of Democratic "witch-hunts" while defending his bosses:

there was no criminal impropriety, there was no allegation of impropriety that has ever borne forth. And the vice president, this week, said he would take any and all steps necessary to protect the American people and that's what the President sought to do.

"No criminal impropriety"? Nah, just an illegal war based on lies, torture, warrantless wiretapping, outing a covert CIA agent, etc. etc. etc.

"No allegation of impropriety that has ever borne forth"? As Melber pointed out, grunts at the bottom of the chain of command are serving prison time for torture; this month the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously blamed Rumsfeld and his top aides for the scandal and referred their findings to the Justice Department.

Melber didn't have time to mention the outing of Valerie Plame, which "borne forth" the conviction of Scooter Libby while leaving a dark cloud over his boss Dick Cheney, who could still be prosecuted some day.

If there truly was "no criminal impropriety," there would be no reason for George Bush to pre-emptively pardon Dick Cheney and everyone else in his Administration on his last day in office. So why does everyone assume he will?