Oh, puke.
For how long have we seen this one coming?
For the sake of national security and national unity, President-elect Barack Obama should put a stop to efforts to investigate or prosecute Bush administration officials for anti-terror "war crimes."
The motive behind such efforts is not — as claimed — "truth" or "justice," but political vengeance.
Yes, yes. When Democrats were in the minority and were the "out" party in the executive, Democrats were lectured that they had to put a stop to efforts to investigate or prosecute Bush "administration" officials for torture, for illegal wiretapping, for domestic spying on anti-war activists, for indefinite detention, for extraordinary rendition, for signing statements, etc. About half the party listened to that advice, and Democrats went on to win back the Congress.
When Democrats won back the Congress but were still the "out" party in the executive, they were lectured that they had to put a stop to efforts to investigate or prosecute Bush "administration" officials for torture, for illegal wiretapping, for domestic spying on anti-war activists, for indefinite detention, for extraordinary rendition, for signing statements. And then for illegal politicization of the Justice Department (and indeed all executive departments), and the subsequent defiance of Congressional subpoenas. About one-third of the party listened to that advice, and Democrats went on to win larger majorities in Congress (including the largest in the Senate since the 1970s), and take the White House.
Now that Democrats have won back the Congress, increased their majorities, and are no longer the "out" party in the executive, they're once again lectured to put a stop to efforts to investigate or prosecute Bush "administration" officials for torture, for illegal wiretapping, for domestic spying on anti-war activists, for indefinite detention, for extraordinary rendition, for signing statements. And then for illegal politicization of the Justice Department (and indeed all executive departments), and the subsequent defiance of Congressional subpoenas.
So, what say you? How much of the party should take that advice this time?
All along, the "worry" of those giving the advice has been that taking a serious look at who did what, why, and whether it was legal would be "political vengeance."
But we've had our "political vengeance," and in exactly the fashion these concern trolls told us we had to seek it: at the ballot box. Now we're onto the other thing the concern trolls told us any time they won at the ballot box: that elections have consequences.
Or at least, the potential is there. I doubt we'll live up to it -- and probably for the bad reasons Kondracke pleads for -- so he can save himself the worry.
The pleas for "national security and national unity" are laughable, particularly in light of Cheney's recent echoing of the unrepentant Nixon, in asserting essentially that "if the president does it, that means it's not illegal." That criminal president was given a free pass on the same pleas: "national security and national unity." And when Congress instead proceeded to adopt new statutory restrictions designed to prevent the kind of criminal activity that sunk Nixon (over the protests of Nixon administration aides like Dick Cheney), there were perhaps some who thought that the pleas for "national security and national unity" had successfully gotten us past the crisis, and permitted us to put firewalls in place that would prevent a repeat. But thirty-something years later, Cheney leaves office having undone those reforms and engaged in precisely the activities they were designed to prevent, all to a chorus of cries for setting it all aside once again in the name of "national security and national unity." Fool me twice. (Or three times, if you count Iran-Contra.)
And all without so much as an inkling that it was the stunning reemergence of these activities -- and the brazen power-grabbing for the executive branch that they demonstrated -- which fostered an atmosphere of complete distrust in the "national security" apparatus and stratospheric levels of political polarization and an historic low in "national unity," except insofar as the public is nearly unified in its disapproval of Dick Cheney and his power-grabbing agenda.
But Mort Kondracke knows the real score. He's looked into the souls of those who think the Nixon free pass might not have been all it was cracked up to be in the "national security and national unity" department (given that it resulted in neither), and found motives of "political vengeance" lurking there.
Of course, it'd be a fairly simple thing to say that calls for a new coat of whitewash in the name of "national security and national unity" are really motivated by the desire to preserve a cushy and unthreatening Beltway existence for the Very Serious GlassesTM crowd. But that'd be conclusory and unfair. And we don't do that, right?
Yes, yes. The prescription for brazen lawbreaking is as it has always been: forgive, forget and repeat. What a shocker. No one could have predicted...