attorney and author charlotte dennett joins me now to talk about her current book the people first bush and the possible aura of impunity that surrounds american presidents thank you very much for sitting down to speak. mr that you have been on an on line campaign to prosecute george w. bush members of his administration for what you call violations of international law domestic law the constitution. why have you not given up on this because the administration of george w. bush was particularly lawless i don't think there's ever been a time in american history when we had the highest officials in government so flagrantly break the law and show no respect at all for the rule of law they just created laws just out of whole cloth they created laws in secret behind closed doors that were in them a cold to american democracy and and shameful to our international image some of those laws for instance redefined torture so that it made it ok for the c.i. a to brutalize prisoners and detainees. supposedly even doing it legally for instance allowing waterboarding to be done legally one in fact it

attorney and author charlotte dennett joins me now to talk about her current book the people first bush and the possible aura of impunity that surrounds american presidents thank you very much for sitting down to speak. mr that you have been on and on relentless campaign to prosecute george w. bush members of his administration for what you call violations of international law domestic law the.

get two-thirds yet and we are trying to figure out how we can prioritize some of the issues with dennett. again so bobby scott is taking the lead on this and it's coming from the committee george miller's committee and also from the judiciary committee. if it appears you know what is gog on in the senate. you don't know it can pass in the senate ever. i will let my message be to you today the republican senators have held up job creations for our people this would be a difficult. we don't know what state this would meet in the senate, so we may try to take pieces of the bill and put them on other trains leaving the station to get as much of it passed without having it go over there and just sit there. so again, when you think of all of the things you can do to make america great, to honor our commitment to the equality o opportunity and giving kids a chance it is hard to think of anything more important in education and special features that are captured in the promise act. d as far as education is concerned conagra's we have had a strong, medication. in fact we passed education bills on

view that isn't a safe condition to be in for an indefinite period of time so i would hope that this dennettwith the information that it has. do we have other questions? i think there was a question in the middle. yes, sir. >> peace action [inaudible] thanks to the panel for a good briefing. can we talk more about the politics behind this? it seems this treaty isa slam dunk and the treaties in the past of gotten some 90 almost all senators voting for it but it seems there are some republicans who are playing politics. can you talk about that, please? >> the politics, who would like to wade into the politics? steve, general scowcroft. that's the way to go. all right. well, i think that as i said in answer to the previous question, this is a complex issue. the senate needs to look very carefully at this. and it's clear that some senators particularly the minority whip john kyl are looking to get some commitments from the obama administration for issues he cares about before he is willing to allow the treaty to move forward, and as more to said and as general scowcroft suggested, it is importan