Breaking: Top GOP Leaders Call for Investigation of Former Administration's Abuses of Power

Intellectual luminary Karl Rove recently had this to say about the potential for investigations into illegal acts committed by the former administration:

What [Obama has] essentially said is if we have policy disagreements with our predecessor, we are going to do is turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in weird sunglasses.

Stalwart Clinton impeachment champion Peggy Noonan relayed a similar sentiment over the weekend:

Some things in life need to be mysterious. Sometimes you need to just keep walking. ... It's hard for me to look at a great nation issuing these documents and sending them out to the world and thinking, oh, much good will come of that.

Notwithstanding Rove and Noonan's protestations to the contrary, a deluge of GOP leaders in recent days have come out with a full-throated call to open up wide-ranging investigations into the former administration's abuses of power.

Here's Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC):

We need to look at to make sure exactly what happened is known to the public and to deter any future president from doing like behavior, if it was wrong. In that regard, if we can do it in a bipartisan fashion, I think that's what we should do. Every American benefits when you can control X abuse of power. If this was an abuse of power, then we need to know about it.

Former Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had this to say:

This is outrageous. We should at least take a look at what happened and ask ourselves, should we take some action to try to prevent abuses that do occur?

House Government Reform Committee Member Dan Burton (R-IN) is outraged:

Congress has an obligation to find out if this was appropriate. [My] panel will obtain subpoenas if necessary.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani can't contain his umbrage:

It needs to be investigated. I think it is worthy of investigation. The facts cry out for an answer to be given... Until we get the answers to this question, [the Bush torture program] is put in some jeopardy of being misunderstood by the public.

Here's Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY):

It's important to remember that [the President] is not personally exempt from federal laws that prohibit the corrupt actions of all government officials.

Finally, Senator Joe Lieberman (?-CT) piled on:

I think the important question is, is there something more Congress can do to try to express through ourselves the will of the American people about a procedure for [approving torture]. [These practices] should be examined.

Amazing how much the debate can shift in just a few days, isn't it?

...Oh, hold on a sec, I'm getting a call.

Hi, I just wrote a blog post, what's up? Oh, you read it? Yeah, those quotes are amazing right?

What? They said them when!?

Crap, I gotta call you back...

Sorry folks, it turns out that the seemingly right-minded GOP quotes I posted above were made during the Republicans' rabid campaign to launch investigations into former President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich back in 2001.

My bad.