In a recent front page story mcjoan regales us with the following stirring rhetoric:
Never again can a White House counsel be made Attorney General. Never again can a real estate lawyer turned presidential lackey be elevated to a position where he or she can so much damage to our country.
I concur in the sentiments wholeheartedly.
Then today I read an interview with David Iglesias that our own Shockwave facilitated over at My Left Wing and the idea came up again:
Shockwave: I have a simple question; this is Shockwave. How do we prevent this from ever happening again?
Iglesias' response was sadly inconclusive:
DI: Wow, that is a fantastic question, nobody's ever asked me that. I think Tom Phillips who's a Republican thinker posted something a couple days ago saying that we need to make the Attorney General a term appointed position, somewhat like the FBI director, who serves for ten years. That way, you know, you're built in to serve over a couple different administrations.
...
and I'm not sure how this scandal could have been avoided through a different process [Emphasis mine- DM]. The root of this is having political operators running a law enforcement agency.
I think this is the most urgent political question of the day for the US. The ravages of the Bush Administration have created a need for a long list of Never Agains. My own would touch such areas as:
- waging pre-emptive war
- abrogating ratified treaties
- politicizing the Civil Service
- suppressing the findings of scientists and other supposedly independent researchers
- punishing whistle-blowers
I invite readers to add to the list in their comments. But making the list is easy. Coming up with remedies is much less so.
One thing is clear to me: winning the Presidency in 2008 is not enough. The Bush Administration has created new precedents on all these fronts. If these are not actively and decisively repudiated, they will be taken up and extended by a later Administration (maybe even a Democratic one).
Congressional oversight is underway to address some of these. But the work is slow and it's uncertain that they'll make much headway before Bush's term ends.
Where are our Presidential candidates on this? They are all more or less campaigning on safe policy positions. The tacit message is that there's nothing wrong in the US government that some good policies can't remedy.
I want the candidates on our side to be continually hammering the Bush Administration for its sabotage of the basic principles of good government and the Republicans in Congress for their complicity in the process. Then an electoral victory can be a true mandate for starting the monumental task of undoing the wreckage left behind by this wantonly criminal regime.
Failing this kind of strong leadership, I have no interest in what the candidates have to say.