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To Bush and the Democrats, a Reluctant Pardon |
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In response to recent calls for Obama to hold Bush accountable, I’d like to point out a sorry fact, one best summed up by Robert Penn Warren’s assertion on segregation in the United States: “responsibilty is a seamless garment. And the northern boundary of the garment is not the Ohio River.”
Substitute the Dem-GOP divide for the Ohio River and you’ve got the painfully honest assessment of our current situation. The fact that the Democrats are both implicit and complicit in the acts we’d have brought under prosecution’s critical light is guarantee that no federally sanctioned judgment will take place.
As we witness not just Republicans, but also Democrats in Congress, acting repeatedly to immunize executive branch lawbreaking and to obstruct investigations, it’s vital to keep that fact in mind. With regard to illegal Bush programs of torture and eavesdropping, key Congressional Democrats were contemporaneously briefed on what the administration was doing (albeit, in fairness, often in unspecific ways). The fact that they did nothing to stop that illegality, and often explicitly approved of it, obviously incentivizes them to block any investigations or judicial proceedings into those illegal programs.
And, from one of the war horses’ mouths:
WALLACE: Let’s drill down into some of the specific measures that you pushed — first of all, the warrantless surveillance on a massive scale, without telling the appropriate court, without seeking legislation from Congress.
Why not, in the aftermath of 9/11 and the spirit of national unity, get approval, support, bring in the other branches of government?
CHENEY: Well, let me tell you a story about the terror surveillance program. We did brief the Congress. And we brought in…
WALLACE: Well, you briefed a few members.
CHENEY: We brought in the chairman and the ranking member, House and Senate, and briefed them a number of times up until — this was — be from late ‘01 up until ‘04 when there was additional controversy concerning the program.
At that point, we brought in what I describe as the big nine — not only the intel people but also the speaker, the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the situation room in the basement of the White House.
I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program, and what we’d achieved, and how it worked, and asked them, “Should we continue the program?” They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike. All agreed — absolutely essential to continue the program.
I then said, “Do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislative authorization to continue what we’re doing?” They said, “Absolutely not. Don’t do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how it is we’re reading their mail.”
That happened. We did consult. We did keep them involved. We ultimately ended up having to go to the Congress after the New York Times decided they were going to make the judge to review all of — or make all of this available, obviously, when they reacted to a specific leak.
But it was a program that we briefed on repeatedly. We did these briefings in my office. I presided over them. We went to the key people in the House and Senate intel committees and ultimately the entirely leadership and sought their advice and counsel, and they agreed we should not come back to the Congress.
Given our situation, prosecution of Bush is simply not a practicable idea. It would necessarily be either a selective process guided by partisan motives (the picture of hypocrisy, destined to divide the nation), or a wholesale affair that cripples our government in a time that demands agility. Justice isn’t cut from such cloth.
Sometimes idealism must take a back seat to pragmatism, and this is one of those time.
This is a good chance to clarify what I meant — “Bush must be held accountable” is pretty vague.
Bush did a lot of awful stuff, with torture and warrantless wiretapping being one of many offenses. Some of these are crimes and some are just bad policy. As a result, he’s pretty unpopular. Like all people, Bush has an ego and wants to be regarded more highly by the public. He probably notes that Jimmy Carter is more liked than he was at the end of his term, and wants to follow a similar course.
My point was that we can’t let him resuscitate his image. Bush failed because his ideology is flawed. It isn’t as much about prosecuting him as it is keeping him unpopular, disincentiveizing future presidents from doing the same thing. We can do that by making sure that 20 years from now his image is as toxic as it is now.
The Obama administration is in a position to do this. They’re inevitably going to come across more appalling shit that Bush was doing. At best, of course I’d like Bush and his cronies to be prosecuted. As you rightly point out, the Obama administration probably isn’t going to go that far because of political reasons. Still, all they need to do is leak what they’ve found, and the media and public will continue to ensure that Bush has a tough time redeeming his image.
Also, I agree that Democrats are complicit too — in an ideal world we could nail their asses to the wall.
agreed, and agreed on your main point Nirmal. “Accountability” doesn’t have to mean prosecuting Bush. But it certainly mean making sure the “Bush legacy project” doesn’t succeed in muddying the waters or somehow rehabilitating Bush’s image.
Ah, then we are in most profound agreement my friend. If Obama doesn’t take that course it will be an act of irresponsibility by his administration. I’ve heard lots of calls for him to start from the get go, by repudiating both Bush’s means and ends in his inaugural address. Hopefully we’ll hear some of that in about a week.
While Democrats often bowed to the Bush-Cheney Administration when it comes to so-called national security issues, I would never use as evidence anything Dick Cheney said in an interview. Not only is Cheney not trustworthy when it comes to anything on this topic that leaves his lips, but under the rules of the intelligence committee, the members are not allowed to publicly discuss any classified issue like this. Furthermore, Cheney is saying in this interview that they did this for 3 years before fully briefing Congress in the situation room, which in itself is ridiculous. Then if you believe Cheney, there was no objection to either the program or the fact that it was not authorized by Congress. I just can not believe that Dick Cheney would ever voluntarily ask whether such a program should get additional authorization — my guess is that his memory of events and that of others will be very different.
Again, not saying that Democrats didn’t roll over again and again, but I would not use Cheney’s remarks as evidence.
I’d like to insert this quote from Portnoy, one of the beloved creatures from the comic strip “Bloom County” - and I’m paraphrasing here: “He who is without sin may cast the first stone. And so I cast that mother.”
request for clarification Jim, just so I know for my future day to day affairs: once the first stone has been cast, is it open game for sinners thereafter? I’ve got some stones I want to hurl at acquaintances here in NYC but no one’s broken the seal yet.
No. But the sinners can feed stones to the ones who are without sin. Jesus never said you couldn’t do that.