I don’t often feel compelled to write to politicians, nor am I naïve enough to think that anything I can say to the Obama campaign will prompt reconsideration of their policy on holding the Bush administration accountable. Nonetheless, for some reason this one was clearly going to bug me until I did it. So, a few days ago, I sent this letter (below) to the Obama campaign.
The point: Congress (and apparently the Obama campaign, as expressed by legal advisor Cass Sunstein) have made a short term, political "cost/benefit" assessment about holding Bush administration officials accountable for their crimes. They all seem to have decided that the cost is too high, the benefit too small. For everyone’s sake, I suggest they recalculate with an eye on the mid-to-long-term costs of NOT holding these criminals accountable.
Challenges to the "conventional wisdom" in Washington rarely come from politicians of any stripe. They come from the grass roots and they only produce results when enough people speak up.
That’s why I’m posting my letter here on Daily Kos -- to see if there’s any "there, there" in what I’ve written. If not, it’ll just be a tree that falls in the proverbial woods. I could live with that. I just couldn’t live with this letter bouncing around in my head and not "put it out there."
This overall topic has, of course, been taken up on Daily Kos any number of times in recent months. I hope my letter is not too duplicative of these. My own search revealed several posts with which my letter seems to dovetail, rather than duplicate. I’m sure I missed lots of excellent work -- the volume and quality of writing on Daily Kos make that all but certain.
Back on June 17th of this year, Meteor Blades provided "Clear Evidence of War Crimes...", noting:
"Nobody who has observed this crew for the past seven and a half years thinks justice will be done in this matter before January 2009. Is it too much to hope that there will be some afterward? Or are we destined to see these torturers and torture enablers and torture-abettors get away without paying even the mildest penalty?"
On July 17th, Hunter -- looking ahead to America’s political future from the perspective of this year’s Netroots convention -- made the gloomy observation that:
"The best we can hope for is that perhaps we will stop torturing...We will perhaps stop politicizing fragments of government that should never have been politicized, and the result will be to dilute the existing corruption, letting the poisoned buffoonery and incompetent hackery slowly work its way through the system for the next decade...If we are successful, if all goes well in November, that is. All we can reasonably hope for is that incompetence is diminished, and criminal acts are reduced, and more facts will out. Hoping for anything more is, at best, foolish."
Still other writers dealt with more of the mounting evidence of crimes, and Congress’ unrealized imperative to act. Some of these included:
Mayor Rocky Anderson, July 25, 2008 (Testimony of Rocky Anderson before the US House Committee on the Judiciary Hearing)
Inky99, July 29, 2008 (Nancy "I'll protect Bush to the bitter end" Pelosi), and
TomP, August 5, 2008 (More Suskind on Today Show: Evidence that "Bush committed an impeachable offense.")
The foregoing, as well as mountains of reporting from both online and traditional media sources, make possible my simple assertion that "...we now know beyond doubt..." that the Bush administration is guilty of committing crimes. It is this increasingly broad awareness of crimes committed by the Bush White House that I argue, in part, creates the imperative for action to hold them accountable.
So, here’s the letter:
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August 15, 2008
Obama for America
P.O. Box 8102
Chicago, IL 60680
An open letter to Barack Obama and the leadership of the Obama for America Campaign:
The following recommends reconsideration of the "conventional wisdom" about holding the Bush administration accountable for crimes which we now know beyond doubt they have committed.
I understand that this matter has already received considerable thought by people with great knowledge and experience in American politics, yet I nonetheless ask that you hear me out. Because, it is precisely the "big picture" perspective of a non-political, non-"insider" that is needed.
I therefore hope to provide some insight on the political calculus of upholding the Constitution, proffered with great respect for a candidate and a campaign which I hold in the very highest regard.
By way of introduction, I am an active supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential bid, most recently hosting an Obama "Platform for Change" meeting attended by over 30 people. Among attendees at my meeting, as well as other Platform Meeting Hosts with whom I’ve spoken since, there is virtual unanimity of agreement that significant action to hold the Bush administration accountable for their crimes is desperately needed.
Recent news accounts (The Nation magazine, 7/18/08; MSNBC, 7/22/08) quoted Obama legal advisor Cass Sunstein, who said that only the most egregious Bush administration crimes should or would be prosecuted. Apparently articulating future Obama administration policy, Sunstein said that:
"Prosecuting government officials risks a cycle of criminalizing public service, and Democrats should avoid replicating retributive efforts, like the impeachment of President Clinton, or even the slight appearance of it."
I understand that a cogent argument can be made for this course of action. The greater good, this thinking goes, will be served by moving ahead and staying focused on the future -- because "going after" these people could touch off a new and even more counterproductive wave of partisan rancor, effectively eliminating Obama‘s ability to govern from the "center."
While this argument sounds very smart, it isn't. To paraphrase an oft-used expression, it's "too savvy by half." Creating a separate, inherently less actionable class of crime that’s reserved only for "public servants" begs a host of questions, here offered rhetorically:
* Does this mean that powerful elected officials should be exempt from accountability under the law, on the theory that any crimes they commit are done with the intent of serving the public?
* Which of the Bush administration’s crimes was a "public service?" Where is the line between "public service" crimes and plain old crime, crimes?
* Which of the Bush administration’s crimes are NOT egregious, and thus should be allowed to go unaddressed in order to avoid "even the SLIGHT appearance" of retribution?
* Which Bush administration crimes are comparable to Bill Clinton, who lied in a misguided attempt to cover up a sexual indiscretion? Must we really be reminded that no one died because of Bill Clinton’s lies?
...
We are facing a crisis of confidence in our government. No longer a mere question of competence, today we must question whether our nation’s defining virtues are still resident in our government. We now know beyond any reasonable doubt that the Bush administration:
* Tortures people, imprisons them indefinitely without charges, and then lies to cover it up;
* Spies on its citizens and otherwise tramples on civil rights and defies the Constitution;
* Hires an army of mercenaries, whom they position to operate outside the laws of any nation;
* Openly enables war profiteering by cronies who deliver substandard output and commit fraud with impunity;
* Uses the Department of Justice to persecute political adversaries through false prosecutions, selectively hiring legal staff who are willing to participate and firing those who won‘t;
* Illegally uses the apparatus of the State to disseminate propaganda and misinformation domestically, lying to the American people as a Standard Operating Procedure.
...
The list goes on and on. The Bush administration didn't invent cynicism about the virtue of our government, but it HAS caused that cynicism to harden and deepen immeasurably for a large segment of the electorate. Nothing could magnify this more than confusing the Bush administration’s crimes with "public service."
The first problem with a "look forward and leave the past alone" approach is that it runs afoul of Americans' most basic understanding of ourselves as a just nation. From our first childhood lessons and storybooks, to the nightly recounting of events on the local news, a singular narrative is presented over and over as the template for understanding ourselves as (to paraphrase John Adams) a nation ruled by laws, not by men.
Americans have always understood that the "bad guys" will sometimes succeed at first, but usually, their crimes and deceit are ultimately revealed for all to see. When that happens, things change and justice prevails. Far from being naïve, this fundamental understanding is the underpinning of our faith in the American system of government – equal justice under the law. It is the clearest means by which we can see the highest ideals we hold as a nation put to practical use in everyday life.
What Americans do NOT understand is a different scenario, in which the truth is there in plain view for all to see, but the guilty walk away untouched simply because they are powerful. We call that a perversion of justice.
The Bush administration's crimes and deceit HAVE been revealed for all to see. The absence of any consequences will also be there for all to see. And it will speak volumes!
I was recently driving in the car with my 8-year-old daughter, listening to news radio, when some Bush administration crimes were reported. My smart, inquisitive daughter asked me to explain what they were talking about, and then naturally asked why none of these people were in jail. My wife and I have taught her that everyone has to obey the same laws. But I had to admit that this is not always true, after all. I had to tell her that, although it has always been true that rich and powerful people can get away with more than average people, it is now the case that some very powerful people are simply above the law altogether. What other conclusion can you draw from everything we've learned in the past couple years? Thus, I found myself telling my young daughter that, today in America, there are some people who can commit all the crimes they want, and never get punished.
A public airing of the Bush administration’s crimes is essential to more broadly debunk the fallacious thinking and wholesale dishonesty that have become embedded in our politics. Turning a blind eye in the name of short-term political progress risks deeper and possibly unalterable damage to our shared understanding about what defines us as a nation. It tells ordinary citizens who thought themselves just as "equal" as anyone else that, in fact, some people really ARE "more equal than others" -- that power DOES confer exemption from accountability under the law.
The second and larger consequence of failing to scrub away the patina of legitimacy that still clings to everything the Bush administration has done is that it would set a dangerous precedent for the future.
However virtuous the presidential administration(s) immediately following Bush may be, letting criminals walk away with no accountability leaves the door wide open for even worse abuses when (inevitably) another "ethically challenged," power-hungry administration takes power in the future.
Congress has failed utterly in its Constitutional mandate to exercise oversight, despite being confronted with clear evidence of Bush administration crimes. They declared proactively that holding the administration legally accountable was "off the table," apparently motivated by calculation of the short-term political advantages of doing so. This approach foolishly purchases short-term political gain at a huge and terrible long-term price.
Congress’ abdication of responsibility effectively defers any hope of justice to the next President.
Despite the pronouncements of smart, politically savvy "insiders" to the contrary, a political quagmire is NOT the inevitable consequence of enforcing the law. Political reality follows public opinion. The nearly unanimous results of poll after poll show that Americans understand at long last, that the Bush administration is taking us "seriously off on the wrong track" -- and survey respondents now say they have more faith in the Postal Service than they do in the Department of Justice.
As an aside, since the online format makes it possible to provide links that cannot be placed in a letter, here are links to three of the many, many polls upon which the foregoing assertion is based:
AP-Ipsos Poll: Most say U.S. on wrong track
U.S. Is Headed in the Wrong Direction, Bipartisan NPR Poll Suggests
CBS Poll: 81% Say U.S. On Wrong Track
Right now, public opinion stands at a tipping point, waiting for the right leader to fully awaken a demand for justice. A leader for ALL Americans – Republicans and Democrats – who can rekindle our collective commitment to something bigger than ourselves: the ideals that made America the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Barack Obama is the leader who can awaken Americans’ willingness to see through those who would place what divides us above the common aspirations that bind us together. Barack Obama can lead a groundswell of conviction that our country's foundational virtues and precious freedoms are not for sale at the price of political expediency.
Thus inspired, the people will demand cooperation from rank and file politicians on both sides of the aisle. There will be no partisan rancor from politicians who, if nothing else, can see the writing on the wall and figure out that their own political fortunes cannot be sustained by standing against the tide of our collective will. There will be no "cycle of retribution" when Americans are united in service of what is right. We the people will defend our Constitution, even if some of our politicians won’t.
America stands at a turning point. In one direction we’ll find cynicism and a gathering malaise of doubt about whether America still stands for anything good. In the other direction there is hope and a rising tide of courage, borne on the strength of our convictions.
The opportunity is here, the time is now, and we must act to seize this moment. If we do not, we will have missed our opportunity to avert deep and lasting damage to the very bedrock of our nation’s identity. We will have sat idly by and watched crime be labeled "public service." We will have allowed the unraveling of our liberties, our freedom, our form of government, to begin.
We will have allowed the unraveling of the first thread that -- irresistibly -- another power-hungry and unscrupulous future president like George Bush will be able to pull, based on whatever pretext the issues of the day offer, to become "unencumbered" by the Constitution.
To think that this will not happen -- now THAT really IS naïve! How harshly history will judge us if we fail to answer this call. Let us hope that, despite all our clever political savvy, we are somehow able to be wiser than that.