"The proposal quickly died amid protests that it was politically untenable because it could put taxpayers on the hook for trillions of dollars.

“ 'People thought, ‘Wow, that’s kind of out there,’  said John C. Dugan, the comptroller of the currency, who heard about the idea afterward. Mr. Geithner says, 'I don’t remember a serious discussion on that proposal then.'

"An examination of Mr. Geithner’s five years as president of the New York Fed, an era of unbridled and ultimately disastrous risk-taking by the financial industry, shows that he forged unusually close relationships with executives of Wall Street’s giant financial institutions.

"His actions, as a regulator and later a bailout king, often aligned with the industry’s interests and desires, according to interviews with financiers, regulators and analysts and a review of Federal Reserve records. 

"The New York Fed is, by custom and design, clubby and opaque. It is charged with curbing banks’ risky impulses, yet its president is selected by and reports to a board dominated by the chief executives of some of those same banks. Traditionally, the New York Fed president’s intelligence-gathering role has involved routine consultation with financiers, though Mr. Geithner’s recent predecessors generally did not meet with them unless senior aides were also present, according to the bank’s former general counsel.

"By those standards, Mr. Geithner’s reliance on bankers, hedge fund managers and others to assess the market’s health — and provide guidance once it faltered — stood out.

"His calendars from 2007 and 2008 show that those interactions were a mix of the professional and the private."

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has a insightful interview with Manfred Novak, UN torture official.

"GG: Back in January of this year, you made a statement in which you said:  "Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation to bring proceedings against top government officials who authorized techniques that under international law are considered torture."

Can you describe, just in summary form, what the sources of the legal obligations are with regards to bringing proceedings against government officials who either engaged in or authorized torture?

"MN: Yes. The United States of America is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture from 1984, which clearly contains the obligation to make torture a criminal offense under domestic law, on the one hand, with adequate sanctions taking account of the gravity of torture as a very serious civil rights violation, and then to exercise jurisdiction on the basis of different principles -- the territoriality principle, the nationality principle, but even the universal jurisdiction principle, because one wants to make sure that perpetrators of torture have no safe haven wherever they are.

"But primarily its the territorial state's obligation. So, if under the direct jurisdiction of the United States of America, a government official - whether its a high official or a low official or a police officer or military officer, doesn't matter - whoever practices torture shall be brought before an independent criminal court and be held accountable. That is, the torturer, him or herself, but also those who are ordering torture practices, or in any other way participating in the practice of torture. This is a general obligation, and it applies to everybody; there are no exceptions in the Convention.

"GG: So, it would be consistent with the Convention Against Torture to say, we've had a prosecutor look at these crimes, and consistent with the way prosecutors make decisions in other crimes, they've either decided to go forward or not go forward, based on legitimate questions of discretion, but it's inconsistent with the treaty to say in advance, we are going to grant immunity as a political matter to all torturers. Is that the distinction that's fair to draw?

"MN: Yes. Certainly, I think if there is any kind of amnesty law, or executive order to say that nobody would be prosecuted for the crime of torture, that's a clear violation of the obligation under the Convention Against Torture, even if it's only those who actually tortured upon the command of higher authority; there, Article 2-3 of the Convention is very clear that the fact that somebody tortures on the basis of an order does not relieve him or her of the obligation not to torture. That might then lead to mitigating circumstances if you can prove that you were really in a situation that you just couldn't do differently because you would have had experienced yourself sanctions if you disobeyed this order. It might be mitigating, but it doesn't take away the guilt and the illegality of the torture act by the individual CIA officer or military person or also from private security companies who actually practiced torture in Iraq.

"At the same time, you have a command responsibility, that means not only those who directed torture are responsible, or that those who order, being in a superior position, a command position, who authorize torture or condone torture - there might be torture by acquiescence. And there are others who might participate, for instance providing legal excuses for torture methods by pretending that these kind of practices would not actually amount to torture as prescribed by US criminal law."

Robert Parry at Consortium News writes about the Democrats and their "battered wife" syndrome, a four decade history of spineless inside the beltway Democrats.

"So, when the Republicans are in a position of power, they throw their weight around, break the rules, and taunt: “Whaddya gonna do ‘bout it?”

"Then, when the Republicans do the political equivalent of passing out on the couch, the Democrats use their time in control, tiptoeing around, tidying up the house and cringing at every angry grunt from the snoring figure on the couch.

"This pattern, which now appears to be repeating itself with President Barack Obama’s unwillingness to hold ex-President George W. Bush and his subordinates accountable for a host of crimes including torture, may have had its origins 40 years ago in Campaign 1968 when the Vietnam War was raging.

"President Lyndon Johnson felt he was on the verge of achieving a negotiated peace settlement when he learned in late October 1968 that operatives working for Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon were secretly sabotaging the Paris peace talks.

"Nixon, who was getting classified briefings on the talks’ progress, feared that an imminent peace accord might catapult Vice President Hubert Humphrey to victory. So, Nixon’s team sent secret messages to South Vietnamese leaders offering them a better deal if they boycotted Johnson’s talks and helped Nixon to victory, which they agreed to do.

"Johnson learned about Nixon’s gambit through wiretaps of the South Vietnamese embassy and he confronted Nixon by phone (only to get an unconvincing denial). At that point, Johnson knew his only hope was to expose Nixon’s maneuver which Johnson called “treason” since it endangered the lives of a half million American soldiers in the war zone.

"As a Christian Science Monitor reporter sniffed out the story and sought confirmation, Johnson consulted Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford about whether to expose Nixon’s ploy right before the election. Both Rusk and Clifford urged Johnson to stay silent.

"In what would become a Democratic refrain in the years ahead, Clifford said in a Nov. 4, 1968, conference call that “Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual [Nixon] elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.”

"So, Johnson stayed silent 'for the good of the country'; Nixon eked out a narrow victory over Humphrey; the Vietnam War continued for another four years with an additional 20,763 U.S. dead and 111,230 wounded and more than a million more Vietnamese killed.

"The Democrats hope against hope that if they tolerate the latest Republican outrages maybe there will be some reciprocity, maybe there will be some GOP votes on Democratic policy initiatives.

"But there’s no logical reason to think so. That isn’t how the Republicans and their right-wing media allies do things; they simply get angrier because belligerence has worked so well for so long.

"On the other hand, Democratic wishful thinking is the essence of this political “battered wife syndrome,” dreaming about a behavioral transformation when all the evidence – and four decades of experience – tell you that the bullying husband isn’t going to change."