Those wild and crazy flame fanners! "Good luck with that!" Marcus is now publicly mocking a member of Congress for proposing that laws be enforced, and revealing her awareness of what she next goes on to explicitly state: Obama wants no part of it.
"Not that President-elect Obama seems particularly eager to take that plunge.
"'If crimes have been committed, they should be investigated,' Obama said in April. Still, he said, 'I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt, because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.'"
As it happens, the top (most voted for) question people are asking Obama right now on his website is whether he will appoint a special prosecutor to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping. Voting is still open for those who want to register their opinions.
Marcus makes clear which side she comes down on:
"I touched briefly on this subject the other day, writing that 'ensuring that these mistakes are not repeated . . . may be more important than punishing those who acted wrongly in pursuit of what they thought was right.'
"How, some readers asked, could future law-breaking be prevented if past misdeeds go unpunished?"
Marcus provides six nonsensical answers. Are you ready?
"First, criminal prosecution isn't the only or necessarily the most effective mechanism for deterrence. To the extent that they weigh the potential penalties for their actions, government officials worry as much about dealing with career-ruining internal investigations or being hauled before congressional committees. Criminal prosecution and conviction requires such a high level of proof of conscious wrongdoing that the likelihood of those other punishments is much greater."
The two main problems with this are as follows. First, "internal" investigations of the president and his top officials are not done by the executive branch, and attempts at oversight by Congress have been blocked by Congress's refusal to impeach combined with the president's dictatorial decision to ignore subpoenas. Second, any such steps are now in the past. It's too late for "internal investigations" to ruin the careers of Bush's torture lawyers who are now off lecturing at top universities and running our courts.
"Second, the looming threat of criminal sanctions did not do much to deter the actions of Bush administration officials. 'The Terror Presidency,' former Justice Department official Jack Goldsmith's account of the legal battles within the administration over torture and wiretapping, is replete with accounts of how officials proceeded despite their omnipresent concerns about legal jeopardy.
'In my two years in the government, I witnessed top officials and bureaucrats in the White House and throughout the administration openly worrying that investigators acting with the benefit of hindsight in a different political environment would impose criminal penalties on heat-of-battle judgment calls,' Goldsmith writes."
Bear this in mind when Marcus writes below in this very same column that she does not think there has been any "conscious law breaking." But let's also stop and think here for a minute. If none of Marcus's other preferred methods ("internal investigations," "congressional committees") deterred these criminals, and the possibility of prosecution didn't deter them, and Marcus hasn't dreamed up any NEW methods of deterring future criminals, are we more likely to deter future crimes by prosecuting these or by letting them go unpunished? If the president before Bush had gone to prison for similar crimes, would the threat of prosecution have served as a greater or lesser deterrent than it actually did? The answer seems obvious to mere mortals not privileged to editorialize in the Washington Post.
"Third, punishment is not the only way to prevent wrongdoing. If someone is caught breaking into your house, by all means, press charges. But you might also want to consider installing an alarm system or buying stronger locks. Responsible congressional oversight, an essential tool for checking executive branch excesses, was lacking for much of the Bush administration.
We installed impeachment in our Constitution, Congress refused to use it, and the Washington Post ignored and mocked a massive public demand for it. We installed the power of contempt and the right to imprison recalcitrant witnesses in our legislature, Congress refused to use it, the Washington Post admitted it existed but never editorialized for it, and the Bush-Cheney gang ignored subpoenas. These failures hardly justify intentionally failing in an additional arena.
"Fourth, there is a cost to pursuing criminal charges. As appalling as waterboarding is, for example, it was pursued with the analysis and approval of lawyers who concluded, however wrongly, that it did not rise to the level of torture. If government officials cannot safely rely on legal advice, they will err on the side of excessive timidity."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
