I had planned a post last night on the President’s comments yesterday where he left the door open “to prosecuting Bush administration officials who devised the legal authority” for intensive investigations of terrorism suspects. Yet, given that other conservative bloggers had posted on the topic–and far better than I ever could–I decided to, in the limited time available to me, focus on other topics.
Yet, in considering the first post I wrote this morning, I realize how the two topics are linked, the president’s refusal to close the door on prosecuting officials of his predecessor’s administration and his failure so far to show acknowledge the legitimacy of the Tea Party protests. To shut the door on such prosecutions and to address citizens’ concerns about a rapidly growing federal government would allow him to rise above the fray and speak out in the national interest.
He could unite the nation by refusing to consider the demands of some of his most vindictive supporters and by acknowledging the concerns of some of his harshest critics. Instead, he has chosen to throw a bone to the former while his minions badmouthed the latter.
These angry supporters are out for blood. Not content that their nemesis has left the White House, they’re still seething. They “don’t just want to defeat conservatives at the polls, they want to send them to jail.” Should the Administration attempt this prosecution, I believe it will backfire. While those targetted rack up huge legal bills, they will prevail a the courthouse and, should they invest in a public relations team, in the court of public opinion as well.
The Administration will appear vindictive, particularly as the Bush Administration officials defend their actions in the context of the times and their concerns for preventing another 9/11. Not just that, the prosecutions will exacerbate partisan differences, further dividing the nation. Unifying presidents work to mitigate not aggravate such divisions.
So, Obama has a choice, close the door on these prosecutions and risk the wrath of his most vengeful supporters. Or open the door and further polarize the nation over which he presides. He can be true to his campaign rhetoric or to the most vocal members of his party’s base.
The choice he makes may come to define his presidency.
RELATED: With lots of links and good insight, Law Professor William A. Jacobson offers weighs in on merits of such a prosecution. Read the whole thing and follow the links.
UPDATE: In a good piece on the persecutions prosecutions, John Podhoretz links David Frum’s insightful analysis:
Now Obama is musing about extending the political reach of the criminal law. If he does so, he will find he has opened a new front of political warfare that will not soon end.
Read the whole things (both of ’em)!
He could unite the nation by refusing to consider the demands of some of his most vindictive supporters and by acknowledging the concerns of some of his harshest critics. Instead, he has chosen to throw a bone to the former while his minions badmouthed the latter.
I wonder, did you ever hand this advice out during either of George Bush’s terms? Was uniting the country a priority for you four or five years ago, when the roles of the parties were reversed, and you guys had all the power? I’m so sure you wanted George Bush to unify with the angry left back then, let’s see you dig up those posts from your archives.
You guys are totally crazy. You’re just going to keep doubling down on this torture business, aren’t you? That’s a message sure to resonate more and more with each revelation and confirmation of Bush administration criminality, and oh yes, there will be more of those.
Also, I like how it took you like 3 or 4 days to bring this up. It’s as if you were waiting for a set of talking points to materialize around a difficult political issue for your side.
Let’s say you go foward with proscution of the Last president. I have 3 questions, please take your time:
1) If every President knows they can be Prosecuted after they leave office for policy differences, will they ever leave?
2) What do you think the rank and file Conservatives and Republicans will do? Do you expect them to stay silent as they become stereotyped and catigated?
3) cato in the Roman Senate worked with Pompey to criminilize Julius Caeser, caeser then crossed the Rubicon and within 100 years the Roman Republic became an Empire — what is the endgame of the democrats? What will they give the Conservatives and Republicans to keep an Empire from rising?
Here is what I answered:
http://valley-of-the-shadow.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-way-lies-romulus-augustulus-that.html
1) If every President knows they can be Prosecuted after they leave office for policy differences, will they ever leave?
Terrible question. These aren’t ‘policy differences,’ but matters of American and international law. I would hope the message that this sends to future American presidents is that they shouldn’t break the law.
2) What do you think the rank and file Conservatives and Republicans will do? Do you expect them to stay silent as they become stereotyped and catigated?
Oh, I’d imagine they would go ballistic. Which wouldn’t be much of a departure for them, I don’t think.
3) cato in the Roman Senate worked with Pompey to criminilize Julius Caeser, caeser then crossed the Rubicon and within 100 years the Roman Republic became an Empire — what is the endgame of the democrats? What will they give the Conservatives and Republicans to keep an Empire from rising?
Seriously? I’m not sure that ancient Roman history is all that relevant here, really. Are you saying that if prosecutions move forward, conservatives will seize power and try to take over the world?
I… don’t get it.
President Obama, for all his talk of bi-partisanship, is breaking a 220 year old tradition that his successor leaves in Peace.
Cato and Pompey did not leave Julius caeser in Peace, he crossed the Rubicon. If the Republicans and conservatives feel they are not being heard v(i.e. CNN and MSNBC, etc et. al) where do these people go?
Caeser is the precedent — and where is President Obama’s bi-partisanship? How do you expect Republicans in Congress to support if policy differences are criminilized.
I know one shouldn’t feed the trolls, but at this point, I have to say something.
Gee, Levi, I don’t know where you were living eight years ago, but here in the U.S., George W. Bush was trying to reach across the aisle as much as he could to pass key points of his agenda, working with Democrats such as Teddy Kennedy and Joseph Lieberman to get his education and tax cut bills passed. He also had approval numbers that, at this point in his first term, rivaled Obama’s.
What he wasn’t doing was revisiting Whitewater or Clinton’s Impeachment, or other divisive issues from the previous 8 years full of scandals.
But finally, with respect to your allegations of “Bush criminality,” if writing memos detailing interpretations of applicable laws, statutes and principles constitutes a criminal act–especially on issues where Congress had refused to weigh in or to pass legislation that would clarify its definition of torure–I would think that some of those who are writing the same kinds of memos in the Obama administration may be a little worried just in case the next president decides to declare them criminals.
After I wrote my last comment, I found this excellent discussion by John Hinderaker over at Powerline. As he states in a parenthetical aside: “I’m curious to see what criminal statute they will claim the DOJ lawyers violated. To my knowledge, authoring a legal analysis with which Eric Holder disagrees is not a crime.”
Just like “racism”, “sexism”, and all the other -isms, the left is defining torture down. KSM’s fingernails weren’t pulled out, he wasn’t shocked, and no one used an electric drill on him. Some of the waterboarding sessions lasted all of 30-45 seconds (with medical supervision). I suspect he gave in out of boredom.
Unlike KSM, many victims of the 9/11 attacks had a long time to ponder their fate. They had ample time to watch their fellows jump from windows or burn to death while they decided for themselves whether to roast or jump.
Daniel Pearl and Nick Berg also had time to contemplate their fates.
I will not ever understand how the left generates so much compassion for people that would, given a chance, slit any of our throats.
I don’t wonder why “they” (Muslims) hate us. I really don’t care. But I do wonder why people on the left hate their fellow westerners.
Useful information was obtained using what I would call aggressive questioning.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042002818.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
“We are not enemies, but friends…though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too.”
Yeah. Still waiting for him to be my President.
I do hereby, in the presence of God and the GP blog, demand that you tell us EXACTLY which laws have been broken, what will the case be built around and who would indict for it. Also, will you demand the prosecution of the Clinton Administration as well? I frequently ask that you back up your claims or ask for specifics and you have yet to do so. I will not let you weasel out. Either put up or STFU. Savvy?
A few years ago Sen. Ted Kennedy tried to push for making waterboarding a war crime. Nobody supported his bill and it died. The liberals could’ve cemented their belief that they’re morally higher by making “torture” and “domestic surveillance”, but they didn’t. Everytime they try, their bill fails even among fellow democrats. Why do you suppose that is?
So all they have is their bloviations and gas about how horrible Republicans are and compare OUR SOLDIERS to terrorists, Nazis, Stalin etc. and that’s supposed to make YOU feel so superior.
Do you “have the guts” to back it up, or are you just another pussified liberal with nothing but KOShole lying points?
I see that we have one of Soro’s boys. Levi, with us again even before anyone else could get a word in.
Levi,
GPW is too much of a gentleman to tell you what an asshole you are. So I will tell you instead.
You are a humongous asshole!
Why on Earth would GPW want the country unified with the bitter, angry left? To make fools like you happy?
GPW didn’t need to give Bush advice on uniting the nation. Bush wasn’t the one doing his best to divide it. That was the left. And the left is still at it, with Obama in the lead.
Be careful about throwing the word “crazy” around, Levi. Your comment was really unhinged. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
What further “criminality” are you expecting to find from the Bush administration. Evidence that G.W. had an affair and then lied about it while under oath? That Mrs. Bush had the head of a White House office fired on trumped up criminal charges? Do tell.
As for this “torture business,” the only thing the previous administration did that could be considered torture was the waterboarding. And given the highly restricted way it was used, and the information its use obtained, you’ll have a hard time stirring the nation into great moral outrage over it.
But then who needs to be lectured on morality by the crowd that whines about how any pain caused by a method of execution renders the death penalty “cruel and unusual punishment,” yet caused the nation to go through a battle of several years just to ban partial-birth abortion?
Thanks folks for standing up for me and taking Levi to task.
JSF, loved the analogy to Roman history. Kurt, spot on about W and Clinton-era scandals.
And Levi, please identify the particular law the Bush officials broke.
And while you’re at it, please let me know where, in his first three months in office, W badmouthed his predecessor as Obama and has team have blamed W. In that teim frame, did his team ever malign a controversial liberal entertainer or pundit?
Under the Obama Regime, are interrogators allowed to have anything more taxing than a polite conversation with a terrorist? It would seem that anything that puts any stress whatsoever on a terrorist is now considered “torture.”
If I am wrong on this, please tell me what techniques are still allowed under the Obama Regime?
V the K,
We have polite conversations with them. It’s part of the Obama administration’s stimulus program to outsource the difficult terrorists to other countries to ‘do the torture Americans won’t do.’ Levi and his ilk will limit their discontent to being ‘disappointed’, being the Louis Renaults of the left.
Would we really have missed Los Angles if President Bush had restricted us to the comfy chair and the soft pillows? I mean what are a few thousand more lives vs. a bit of water? I’m sure the survivors would be content to know that Nancy Pelosi put the rights of a mass murderer above the defense of her constituants.
#9 – “A few years ago Sen. Ted Kennedy tried to push for making waterboarding a war crime.”
Probably because he was having flashbacks of Chappaquiddick and wanted to make sure his own “legacy” would be intact.
Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.
Regards,
Peter H.
#11 – “Levi,
GPW is too much of a gentleman to tell you what an asshole you are. So I will tell you instead.
You are a humongous asshole!”
No argument from this corner.
Regards,
Peter H.
Levi and some of the rest of the leftists here are not about a dialogue or getting educated about history. So my personal attitude now is to ignore his posts. I love engaging smart people who have different opinions and views. I learn, they learn and the message and information gets colored in. Some of these boobs reflect the current administration. They don’t want to have an open mind. So to eliminate my frustration, I’m ignoring the posts. C ya.
Thanks folks for standing up for me and taking Levi to task.
JSF, loved the analogy to Roman history. Kurt, spot on about W and Clinton-era scandals.
And Levi, please identify the particular law the Bush officials broke.
In the interests of saving everyone’s time, here’s just the terrorism laws they broke:
* Anti-Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340-40A)
* The War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441)
* The Geneva Conventions and Hague Convention: International Laws Governing the Treatment of Detainees
* United Nations Convention Against Torture, and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment: International Laws Governing the Treatment of Detainees
* Command Responsibility (for known illegal acts of subordinates in the military)
* Detainment of Material Witnesses (18 U.S.C. § 3144)
He’s also committed a number of crimes on other issues, including laws on surveillance, leaking classified information, and lying to the American public.
I think it’s funny how you guys still invoke the ‘We had to enforce the UN resolutions!’ excuse when justifying the Iraq war, but all those international treaties and conventions on terrorism? Nah. Bush picked and chose which laws to follow and which ones to enforce, and the conservative movement was with him every step of the way.
And while you’re at it, please let me know where, in his first three months in office, W badmouthed his predecessor as Obama and has team have blamed W. In that teim frame, did his team ever malign a controversial liberal entertainer or pundit?
Hmmm… what is this about? Your guys’ standards for ‘badmouthing his predecessor’ are ridiculous. Obama is using kid gloves on George Bush, if he’s even swinging at all. Which conservative entertainers is Obama maligning?
Levi,
So, don’t you agree that the Obamanauts should go back and pick up Richard Clarke and Al Gore for a show trial?
They were not pouring a trickle of water on a man’s face, they were sending people off to known, big league torturers to get information beaten out of them. Oh, sure, this was done under Reagan and G.W. Bush as well, but it certainly must have been a major recruitment tool for Al Qaeda, don’tcha know.
And by the way. Since waterboarding has been a major recruitment tool for Al Qaeda, suppose Al Qaeda recruitment does not subside. You must have a ready made explanation for that.
And another point. Since Obama released copies of the actual documents, do you have any concern that counterfeit documents are now that much easier to produce by Al Qaeda to use as “recruitment tools?” I know you believe that reasonable people are driven into the arms of Al Qaeda after they assess waterboarding the “standing” of the United States in the world after eight years of immorality, corruption, deceit, mayhem, lying, fascism, and being a really dirty birdie under the dumbest President to ever walk.
Perhaps we should close down the CIA. Would you take the legal advice if you worked there? Would you work there giving legal advice? Furthermore, since Obama said he would move on and then decided he would reverse course, what makes you think that his saying agents would be protected is worth the nanosecond of breath it took to utter it?
Your little boy President has no onions. He has made it OK for Holder to do political witch hunts and show trials. But he can always say he was too busy reading the book Chavez gave him to know what Holder was doing.
“Sgt. Schultz, report to Col. Klink’s office right away.” What a sad farce this prima donna has turned out to be. And there you are, high kicking and grinning at the head of the chorus line. You go, girl!!!!
Let’s see.
* Anti-Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. § 2340-40A)
Nope. Criminal procedure. They’re not criminals.
* The War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441)
Nope not here: ‘ As provided by the Constitution and by this section, the President has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and to promulgate higher standards and administrative regulations for violations of treaty obligations which are not grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions’
Specifically says the President has the authority
* The Geneva Conventions and Hague Convention: International Laws Governing the Treatment of Detainees
Wrong again: That any armed conflict between two or more “High Contracting Parties” is covered by GCIII Al Quaeda and the Taliban don’t quality.
* United Nations Convention Against Torture, and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment: International Laws Governing the Treatment of Detainees
Nope: It does not appear that sections 2340 and 2340A would cover acts of torture committed at U.S. facilities abroad if those acts were committed by or against U.S. nationals.
* Command Responsibility (for known illegal acts of subordinates in the military)
Since they’re not illegal, this doesn’t apply. Circular argument.
* Detainment of Material Witnesses (18 U.S.C. § 3144)
Again, not criminal.
*yawn* Another set of false arguements demolished.
#20 – Methinks the Levite will need to get new Huff’N’Puff talking points as those have been thoroughly debunked.
Good job LW.
Regards,
Peter H.
Well done, Livewire.
The one and SINGLE thing I applauded BHO for and he is backtracking on it. I liked that BHO wanted to look forward and leave the torture business behind. The left wingnuts are dragging him down into the dirt.
I’d still like for Levi to tell us who he thinks would be willing to throw away their career and reputation by bringing these “charges”. Further, I’d like to know who the hell would bother to work with the WH after they initiate such a show trial.
C’mon Levi. Just admit that this is nothing more than revenge for daring to hold lord BJ accountable for perjury and obstruction of justice.
That would require more than a five minute* google search and a new set of talking points.
*estimate 5 mintues because it took me 10 to look up the last post he listed something and rip it apart.
Levi – as I mentioned earlier, I think we’re defining torture down. It’s my understanding that very few prisoners (three?) were waterboarded in 2002 and 2003. Among other atrocities, was placing a caterpillar in a cell with someone and telling him it was venomous.
Uncomfortable and scary do not make torture. If I were to be arrested and taken to jail, I’d be scared sh*tless. Is that torture? When I was a reserve cop I hated going anywhere near the jail – a phobia, if you will.
One of Obama’s advisers (name escapes me) testified that valuable intel was obtained.
Bottom line, though, is that the Democrats (including Pelosi) were briefed on several occasions and knew exactly what was going on.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTAzMjI3OGI0NmJhZDJmYWU5YzIzZjlhNjRmYjNiNGE=
Unfortunately, the link in the Corner post to the WaPo article is broken – maybe they’ll fix it.
I think the asshole comment was over the top. After all, this isn’t a liberal blog.
Unfortunately, many liberals are impervious to reason so why go ballistic when you fail to sway them? It shouldn’t be a surprise. As my (once a flaming liberal, now conservative) uncle used to say “My mind is made up so don’t try to confuse me with the facts”.
If an authentic picture emerged with Obama and John Murtha holding KSM down while Pelosi poured the water (or worse – egad), conservatives would still get bashed.
Indeed. CLD was actually being polite, a trait you won’t find on a liberal blog.
Anyhoo,
I wonder if Levi would also demand the prosecution of the liberals who signed off on said “torture” and who wondered if it were “enough”.
By the by,
That may be the idea just as liberals bastardize sexual harassment, FUBAR political correctness, patriotism, compassion, tolerance and several other words and concepts.
Christopher Hitchens gets waterboarded – video here:
http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/2009/04/how-many-lives-did-we-save-by.html
It certainly looks unpleasant (he lasted 18 seconds) – I don’t think I’d volunteer – but I just cannot see a moral issue when it comes to “high value” prisoners.
The high-and-mighty like Andrew Sullivan can afford to be absolutists in the abstract but when it comes to real life (when you’re risking the lives of potentially thousands of others), the equation changes. Sully (and Levi) may be right or they may be wrong (or I might be wrong) – but it doesn’t matter. If we’re wrong, nobody dies. GWB didn’t have that luxury.
It’s one thing to die for your principles; it’s quite another to have someone else die for your principles.
Nor did he have the luxury of a CIA with testicles that could offer good intel. I think if one was to really push for an investigation, the Clintonistas who castrated the CIA should be looked into.
I think Rush is right. If you’re going to be waterboarded 68 times (or however many times it was) it just isn’t torture.
Wow, Levi’s mom come downstairs and shut off his internet access?