Are all these investigations leading anywhere?

I realize that there is hot and cold running corruption in the Bush Administration, to the point that this bunch of crooks may have reached a tipping point of evil beyond which it's impossible to prosecute. But with 20 months left to go in the Bush Administration, are the Democrats going to actually do something about it, or are they just going to continue to run investigations; making a show of righteous outrage while they too just run out the clock?

Bloomberg News reports:

Senate Democrats, spurred by revelations that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales pressured hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004 to approve a secret spying program, are stepping up a probe of the Justice Department.

Lawmakers today moved to challenge Gonzales on several fronts, including demanding the Justice Department turn over e- mails from White House political adviser Karl Rove. Also, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska joined about half a dozen Republicans in urging Gonzales to step down as attorney general.

``Alberto Gonzales puts his blind loyalty to the president above the rule of law,'' said Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York. ``The Justice Department seems to reek of politicization'' beyond the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

[snip]

In a related development, the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee demanded the Justice Department turn over any e-mails from Rove that concern the firing of the U.S. attorneys.

Two Days to Respond

Senators Patrick Leahy, the panel's chairman, and Arlen Specter, the senior Republican, gave the department two days to respond. The committee earlier subpoenaed the documents, and yesterday's deadline passed with no response from the agency, the senators said.

``You ignored the subpoena'' and ``did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance,'' the senators wrote in a latter last night to Gonzales. ``The committee intends to get to the truth.''

Leahy, of Vermont, and Specter, of Pennsylvania, told Gonzales the Justice Department at least should have provided the committee with a written response explaining its refusal to comply.

The subpoena, issued by Leahy May 2, demanded all of Rove's e-mails in the Justice Department's possession that relate to the probe.

It's time to start strongarming those Republicans who still have a sense that the rule of law is more important than loyalty to this disaster of a president. Unless George W. Bush has photographs of them in a compromising position with a dead girl, a live boy, various barnyard animals, or all of the above, it's time for some of that much-vaunted "bipartisanship" to go the other way. It's time for the Democrats to stop running scared of Joe Lieberman jumping ship and call upon those across the aisle to finally do the right thing.