The Villagers are in a retrospective, and all too typical self-congratulatory, mood with the death of Deep Throat. LithiumCola has already taken on Len Downey, so now it's Ruth Marcus's turn.
Let's start with this mind-boggling question that frames her discussion:
In Felt's time, this conversation took place through the prism of the Weather Underground and the FBI's illegal break-ins, known as "black bag" jobs. Today, the same tensions manifest themselves in the impassioned national discussion about the Bush administration's interrogation and surveillance policies. But, at bottom, they implicate the same difficult set of issues: How much can and should government infringe on personal privacy and individual liberties in the name of guarding against risks to public safety? What should be the role of criminal law when government officials overstep permissible bounds in the name of national security?
Simple answers to simple-minded questions. The government can and should infringe on individual liberties within the scope of existing law. When that law is broken, by either government officials or Joe Blow, the role of criminal law is to prosecute the law breaker.
The whole "in the name of natinal security" strawman, of course, occurs to Ms. Marcus, as it does all Villager apologists who have somehow conveniently forgotten the fact that we've created a glorious system of government that allows for laws to be amended as needed. A whole bunch of smart people have been elected and appointed, ostensibly, to defend and protect the Constitution that set up that system. It worked, with a few hiccups, to get us to 2001 in pretty good stead. That it's failed since 2001 is a much a reflection on the failures of those people we elected to protect as it does the supposed watchdogs like Ms. Marcus who are supposed to be in a position to call foul when they see it being subverted.
Which of course, Ms. Marcus is just not capable of doing, as her conclusion demonstrates.
And so Felt's death comes at a moment when the country is in the midst of another chapter of this debate. When Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledges having participated in the development of "enhanced interrogation" policies that most civilized people consider torture, when he expresses his approval of the use of waterboarding to obtain information from Khalid Sheik Mohammed, is he subjecting himself to -- should he be subjected to -- prosecution for war crimes? Should President Bush, on his way out of office, issue the Carter equivalent of a blanket pardon to officials who crafted and participated in torture in the interrogation and surveillance programs? Should the new administration launch criminal investigations of its predecessors or turn the page to a new era?
I happened, as a young reporter, to cover some of the Felt and Miller trial and remember feeling torn about the case -- revolted by their actions but sorry at some level for the actors.
In the current unspooling, I unexpectedly find myself more in the camp of Reagan than Nields. I understand -- I even share -- Nields's anger over the insult to the rule of law. Yet I'm coming to the conclusion that what's most crucial here is ensuring that these mistakes are not repeated. In the end, that may be more important than punishing those who acted wrongly in pursuit of what they thought was right.
Given her already demonstrated lack of understanding about the whole "rule of law" concept, I find it hard to believe that she has the depth of understanding to grasp the insult to it that Bush/Cheney have done.
But let's get the core of it (which Glenn has done briiliantly here).
- The Bush/Cheney lawlessness was not a "mistake," no more a mistake than the Nixon era abuses which created many of the laws that Bush/Cheney willfully and knowlingly broke--not by accident, not by mistake, but purposefully.
- The very purpose of our legal system is to prevent
mistakes law-breaking by punishing the perpetrators. We don't ensure that law-breaking stops by giving amnesty to the lawbreakers, or at least when the system wasn't broken by people who share Marcus's belief that it's okay for the people in charge to break the law, because they know best.
Marcus demonstrates the sickness that's invaded Washington, a sickness that calls torture "enhanced interrogation," that excuses law-breaking because it's the path of least resistance. It's a sickness that allows the most most egregious insults to our rule of law--torture, wars of choice, warrantless spying on innocent Americans--to be written off as "mistakes."