On Sunday, the New York Times’ Frank Rich gave readers a lot to think about as he previewed the upcoming book, The Dark Side, which has been in the works for several years. Jane Mayer, who has been investigating and tracking malfeasance in the Bush administration for the New Yorker, has written what appears to be the definitive description of a secretive, vindictive White House run by Dick Cheney. The bottom line (like we didn’t know this all along) is that the Bush administration has succeeded in making Richard Nixon’s crew look like little more than schoolyard bullies:

Some of “The Dark Side” seems right out of “The Final Days,” minus Nixon’s operatic boozing and weeping. We learn, for instance, that in 2004 two conservative Republican Justice Department officials had become “so paranoid” that “they actually thought they might be in physical danger.” The fear of being wiretapped by their own peers drove them to speak in code…

One of those officials? James Comey, the acting U.S. Attorney General who rushed to John Ashcroft’s hospital bedside when then-White House lawyer Alberto Gonzalez was trying to strongarm a critically ill Ashcroft to sign off on the administration’s illegal domestic wiretapping program.

Indeed, some of the actors in the Bush administration (present and past) are basically confined within the borders of the U.S. because of their past involvement in and enabling of the breach of various international norms - such as torture. According to Rich:

Top Bush hands are starting to get sweaty about where they left their fingerprints. Scapegoating the rotten apples at the bottom of the military’s barrel may not be a slam-dunk escape route from accountability anymore…

So hot is the speculation that war-crimes trials will eventually follow in foreign or international courts that Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, has publicly advised Mr. Feith, Mr. Addington and Alberto Gonzales, among others, to “never travel outside the U.S., except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel.” …

I hear the beach at Haifa is nice at this time of the year.

Frank Rich’s column from this past Sunday jumps around a bit, and it seems almost like he was trying to cover too much ground within the confines of a few op-ed column inches, making the column nearly unreadable as written (and published). But his point is clear: the potential crimes committed by the Bush administration are wide ranging, sanctioned at the very top, and were put into practice by a gang that makes the Soprano Family appear benign in comparison.

Let the investigations begin.

See also: Six questions for Jane Mayer, from Harpers Magazine.