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Submitted by b psycho on Sun, 2009-04-26 00:41.
Reminder #12312978 of the bankruptcy of politics: people that write garbage like this aren't laughed into obscurity...:
If ever there were a time for President Obama to trust his instincts and stick to his guns, that time is now, when he is being pressured to change his mind about closing the books on the "torture" policies of the past. Obama, to his credit, has ended one of the darkest chapters of American history, when certain terrorist suspects were whisked off to secret prisons and subjected to waterboarding and other forms of painful coercion in hopes of extracting information about threats to the United States. He was right to do this. But he was just as right to declare that there should be no prosecution of those who carried out what had been the policy of the United States government. And he was right when he sent out his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to declare that the same amnesty should apply to the lawyers and bureaucrats who devised and justified the Bush administration practices. (emphasis mine)
As I've mentioned before, the likelihood of prosecutions was, is and will be zilch barring an absolute miracle. There's generally been two views shaking out over this:
  • Right-wingers say that the entire thing -- disclosure of the memos, criticism of the interrogation methods, all of it -- is stupid, the techniques INCLUDING waterboarding aren't torture, and it doesn't matter anyway because they were only applied to the worst of the worst and great intel came from them. All of these are verifiably false, but at least it's internally consistent with their ends-justify-the-means ironically relativist worldview.
  • Pretty much everybody else approves of the releases, and if they don't openly call for prosecutions (though, as Glenn recently pointed out, polls have shown approval for such) they at the least think the tactics were a dumb and/or disgusting idea.
In contrast, David Broder's view is effectively "nice to know, yeah it sucked, but who cares?". How original of him! His reasoning for this is ________?
[...]having vowed to end the practices, Obama should use all the influence of his office to stop the retroactive search for scapegoats. This is not another Sept. 11 situation, when nearly 3,000 Americans were killed. We had to investigate the flawed performances and gaps in the system and make the necessary repairs to reduce the chances of a deadly repetition. The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department -- by the proper officials.
This sounds like Broder is trying to argue that torture was, possibly, the only thing standing between us & another attack, only w/o coming out and actually saying it. Either that, or he's justifying wild half-assed panic in response to failure. How he figures waterboarding and slamming people into walls was just another allegedly carefully agreed upon tactic switch for Defending The Homeland purposes and not feel-good vindictiveness (and, as we now know, fishing for that al-qaeda/Saddam tie that never materialized...) puzzles me. No, seriously David, what's your argument?
Suppose that Obama backs down and Holder or someone else starts hauling Bush administration lawyers and operatives into hearings and courtrooms. Suppose the investigators decide that the country does not want to see the former president and vice president in the dock. Then underlings pay the price while big shots go free. But at some point, if he is at all a man of honor, George W. Bush would feel bound to say: That was my policy. I was the president. If you want to indict anyone for it, indict me. Is that where we want to go? (emphasis mine)
Words fail me...
 
(cross-posted to Psychopolitik)

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John Dean's case for impeaching lower officials

#7126 On Sun, 2009 04 26 09:55 adam ricketson said,

John Dean's case for impeaching lower officials:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20061215.html

There was so much BS during the Bush Administration that I can hardly keep it straight. Wasn't there a situation where Congress responded to a Bush Admin action by explicitly prohibiting that action, yet Bush continued to do it? Was that torture, or something else (domestic spying)?

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One of those signing statements

#7129 On Sun, 2009 04 26 12:27 b psycho said,
It was torture. Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, passed the Senate 90-9 & amended into the defense appropriations bill. Signing statement basically said it was meaningless.
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cyncial politics?

#7127 On Sun, 2009 04 26 10:00 adam ricketson said,

Without a proper investigation, every member of the Bush Administration can be credibly suspected of participating in these crimes. This might make it difficult for future Republican candidates (if voters actually paid attention to personnel issues)

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Strategically...

#7130 On Sun, 2009 04 26 12:53 b psycho said,

I think especially on this type of issue Republicans are really in a box.

Coming out in front on this & supporting investigation would steal some thunder. Problem is, the only ones that'd be able to do it would be party members that weren't in or seeking federal office at the time, since the ones that were don't have clean hands. Even then, the base would eat them alive -- and frankly, for what it'd say about Republican control in general, I wouldn't blame them. They'd have to leave the party since they'd effectively indict it in war crimes. Meanwhile, doing what the base wants & loudly defending this kind of action is political suicide for seeking anything other than severely gerrymandered House seats.

If I were one of their strategists, I'd be saying for their candidates to just shut up about it & hope it goes away. Of course, that means a Dem strategist should be pushing candidates to open up that cut some more...

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The gist of his argument boils down to...

#7132 On Sun, 2009 04 26 18:21 ka1igu1a said,

the unitary executive branch wouldn't be able to function if the political parties played a tit-for-tat strategy to prosecute the holders of that office...

Recall the United Office of the Independent Counsel/Prosecutor that was enacted after Nixon, resulting in every president being investigated, Reagan, Bush,Clinton...With Starr it got particularly politicized over trivial matters and you almost had a sitting president impeached for lying about a blow job...

that's what is at work here...both political parties ended the tit-for-tat strategy in 1999, when they let that law expire,...they don't want to see a resumption

Of course, Broder's couching of the argument is laughable:

The memos on torture represented a deliberate, and internally well-debated, policy decision, made in the proper places -- the White House, the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department -- by the proper officials.

The fact is, there is no such thing as the "Rule of Law," anyways. Anyone and everyone could be prosecuted and guilty of some crime if the weight of a prosecutor's office were brought to bear on you...if you ended up in their cross-hairs. Even if you weren't guilty of the crime they were "investigating," you run the risk of being guilty of "obstructing justice" during the investigation of the bogus crime itself.

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Tragedy

#7138 On Tue, 2009 04 28 16:27 Rod Dixon said,

Reign of terror aside, Robespierre summarized the ideal attitude of politicians toward the law: "In order for the government to keep in the closest harmony with the law it is over its own head that it must wield the heaviest stick." Unfortunately this is only further evidence that neither politicians nor establishment journalists seem to agree.

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