Palin was right.  Biden should have gotten this Vice President thing in writing.

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.

Biden’s comments, first reported by ABC news, attracted little notice on a day dominated by the drama surrounding his Republican counterpart, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

But his statements represent the Democrats’ strongest vow so far this year to investigate alleged misdeeds committed during the Bush years.

“If there has been a basis upon which you can pursue someone for a criminal violation, they will be pursued,” Biden said during a campaign event in Deerfield Beach, Florida, according to ABC.

“[N]ot out of vengeance, not out of retribution,” he added, “out of the need to preserve the notion that no one, no attorney general, no president—no one is above the law.”

The minute Obama announced Biden as his VP we all knew this was going to happen, right?  That Biden was going to say stupid thing that leaves Obama scrambling to back away from his comments?

I, personally, think Americans are tired of the left’s crusade against Bush.  The Democrats’ concerted efforts to convince everyone that McCain represents Bush’s third term haven’t gained any traction because most Americans aren’t as obsessed with Bush the way hardcore Democrats are.

If there’s a valid reason to see Bush prosecuted for crimes the Democrats have had two years in control of the Congress, the government branch where such proceedings begin, to find it and pursue it.  They’ve failed, which means that Biden’s bit of nonsense is the same sort of tiresome Bush derangement that began to seem childish around the time John Kerry accepted the Democrat nomination for President.

Besides, I think many Americans are coming around on Bush.  We’re winning in Iraq.  We just handed the largest, and most troublesome, Iraqi province over to the control of the Iraqi government.  Casualties are down.  Attacks are down.  General Petraeus is talking about bringing troops home next year, and the Iraqis are talking about a permanent end to all American combat operations by 2011.

The time when Bush-bashing was an effective political ploy has come and gone.