Bush and Cheney contend all they needed to legally violate the US Constitution was a lawyer letter. They didn't break the law, and they have a letter from their attorney to prove it. That attorney, by the way, would be former Assistant US Attorney, John Yoo, (whose nickname in the administration was “Dr. Yes.”)
Senator Carl Levin, who is pushing for a post-Bush investigation, doesn't agree; "You can't suddenly change something that's illegal into something that is legal by having a lawyer write an opinion saying it's legal."
Of course not. If that were so there would be no need for the long and complicated constitutional amendment process required (up until now) to change the law of the land. If Bush and Cheney's view is allowed to stand, all future presidents would need is a letter from a friendly lawyer.
I worry about a lot of things lately, the economy, loose nukes, al Qaida and climate change. But none of them, not one of them, strikes more at the heart of who and what we are as a nation and people than whether or not we still have the intellectural and moral honesty and backbone to enforce the rule of law -- not just for the lowest among us, but the highest as well. Especially the highest.
Finally I leave you with this, another moment in history when the civilized world had to decide whether or not to let horrific acts by high public officials would stand. From the closing statement of US Supreme Court Justice, Robert Jackson as he served as chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials in 1946:
"In conspiracy we do not punish one man for another man's crime. We seek to punish each for his own crime of joining a common criminal plan in which others also participated. The measure of the criminality of the plan and therefore of the guilt of each participant is, of course, the sum total of crimes committed by all in executing the plan. But the gist of the offense is participation in the formulation or execution of the plan.Amen.
These are rules which every society has found necessary in order to reach men, like these defendants, who never get blood on their own hands but who lay plans that result in the shedding of blood. All over Germany today, in every zone of occupation, little men who carried out these criminal policies under orders are being convicted and punished.
It would present a vast and unforgivable caricature of justice if the men who planned these policies and directed these little men should escape all penalty."
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