I’m sorry, but if we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years — and nearly everyone has taken Mr. Obama’s remarks to mean that we won’t — this means that those who hold power are indeed above the law because they don’t face any consequences if they abuse their power.
Let’s be clear what we’re talking about here. It’s not just torture and illegal wiretapping, whose perpetrators claim, however implausibly, that they were patriots acting to defend the nation’s security. The fact is that the Bush administration’s abuses extended from environmental policy to voting rights. And most of the abuses involved using the power of government to reward political friends and punish political enemies.
[From Op-Ed Columnist - Forgive and Forget? - NYTimes.com]
If Bush and his minions are not held to account for their transgressions - and I'm using the most absurdly kind word I can think of here - they will only be cited by some future megalomaniac as precedent and we'll go through the whole thing all over again, or worse. Just like the Bushies cited, ad nauseam, Lincoln's suspension of habeas, even though the Supremes later declared it unconstitutional. If Obama really wants to look forward, he'll do something about the recent past.
But don't hold your breath until it happens.
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