Vice President-elect Biden, 12/21/08: “[T]he questions of whether or not a criminal act has been committed or a very, very, very bad judgment has been engaged in is—is something the Justice Department decides. Barack Obama and I are—President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We’re focusing on the future… I’m not ruling [prosecution] in and not ruling it out. I just think we should look forward. I think we should be looking forward, not backwards.”Then, when George Stephanopoulos asked President-elect Obama the same question in his interview for the Jan. 11th edition of ABC's "This week," Obama had this to say:
OBAMA: We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. And part of my job is to make sure that for example at the CIA, you’ve got extraordinarily talented people who are working very hard to keep Americans safe. I don’t want them to suddenly feel like they’ve got to spend all their time looking over their shoulders and lawyering [up].The response from the left has been swift. Olbermann and Maddow both took it up on their shows Friday evening, bringing up the points that this won't simply go away and, perhaps more importantly for a President who has promised to restore America's prestige around the world, that the U.S. is obligated by international law to investigate transgressions against the UN Convention Against Torture. Furthermore, if we don't investigate, foreign prosecutors might.
This all being said, there are certainly reasons for Obama's position. With the country in shambles, there would be plenty on the President's plate come January 20th without the nasty business of dealing with Bushies and their failed torture policies. Passing a meaningful economic stimulus package (though it is debatable if we can call the current plan "meaningful"), repairing or wholly replacing a badly broken healthcare system, ending the war in Iraq and finally successfully executing the war in Afghanistan are all going to take time, resources, and ever-precious political capital, even for a President with a massive mandate. And this is far from an exhaustive list of priorities. Already the Pubbies and their neo-con friends are gearing up to try and fight this tooth and nail, promising to make this the issue should the Dems pursue it, all at the expense of these otherwise important and, understandably, more popular policy objectives.
What's more, the Pubbies could do it if Dems bungle a prosecution. Obama didn't win a huge mandate by promising to begin prosecution of senior Bush officials. He did it by speaking to the real, every day challenges most Americans face and offering an end to the divisive politics of the Bush era. For PEBO and the new Democratic powerhouse in Congress, mishandling these more meat and potatoes issues in the political dogfight that would follow appointment of a special prosecutor may be the fastest possible road to a Democratic bloodbath in the 2010 midterms. History tells us the Presidential party loses ground, almost no matter what. Imagine the losses if all that comes out of the 111th Congress is a bruising, partisan fight over deposed Bushies while the country languishes in economic turmoil. Just try passing a meaningful healthcare package with a reinvigorated Republican Party.
And yet, despite this, they still have to do it and we, the people, should keep pushing them to do it. As citizens in a democratic republic, it's our responsibility to hold our leaders accountable because, ultimately, they answer to us. If there is one scathing critique of the Bush era to offer that isn't aimed at the Bushies themselves, it is that the citizens of the United States enabled the administration to do their worst. Scarecrow's post at Oxdown makes the point well that the Bush era isn't just the Bush era, no matter how much we wish it were. For eight years, we the people and our elected officials consistently abdicated our responsibility to use our votes to protect our system of government and laws. If Bush and his cronies shredded the Constitution, they did it with scissors we gave them. And not only did we fail to take the scissors away in 2004, we decided they deserved an industrial strength shredder.
(Yes, as a liberal watching America the last 8 years, I felt a little like that car)
Prosecuting Bush administration officials isn't about paying blood money to a now-vindictive Democratic majority. It isn't about closing Gitmo. It isn't even about establishing that, going forward, the United States will not engage in torture. It's about acknowledging, as a nation, a tremendous lapse in judgment, the abdication of our constitutional responsibility as citizens and making an unequivocal statement in favor of universal application of the law. The only way to begin mending the rent American fabric Scarecrow laments is to put our faith back in the laws of this nation and to use them accordingly, no matter who it involves dragging into court for judgment. And now, finally, prosecution of some senior Bush officials looks like a real possibility, or so said international law and torture expert, Philippe Sands, on "Fresh Air" this week and in his book Torture Team.
As for our other policy priorities, we need to stand by them. Fervently. Call any Pubbie attempt to use this prosecution to distract from an ambitious legislative program exactly what it is: a tawdry attempt to defend no less than Constitutional destruction at the expense of legislation that Americans can't afford to delay. No matter how much we wish we could put the Bush years behind us and look forward to brighter days ahead, any legislative win coming at the expense of dealing with the more fundamental damage to our national identity would be a Pyrrhic victory.
Unless Americans can stand up and acknowledge their complicity in the failures of the last eight years, they won't truly be able to move past the Bush era. And if we can't do that, any reforms introduced today won't have the durability needed to weather the foolishness of Bush-era lookalikes in the future.
UPDATE: More on the feasability of prosecution for senior Bush Administration officials from looseheadprop at Firedoglake.
UPDATE: Kossack mcjoan has a great post along these lines as well.
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