George W. Bush as Dictatorial Thug

NYT, via Ritholtz:

Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.
In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful.

I thought it was pretty obvious that Bush was digging up dirt on opponents, but I just wonder how many dozens or hundreds of people were targeted.  I always figured people were overreacting when they said they ended up on the terrorist watch list for being opposed to the Iraq War, but at this point the thuggish and cruel behavior demonstrated by the Bush administration makes me think that some of these people were lucky they weren't detained and tortured.  Now, Obama is using drones to target at least one U.S. citizen for attack, so he isn't much better.  There are a number of Bush White House officials who should be prosecuted, including Dick Cheney, John Yoo, David Addington and a number of others.  They are criminals and cowards.