Article: Prosecuting Bushite Crimes: It's a Genuine Dilemma

To say that we have a dilemma is NOT, however, to say that there can be no solution. It is only to say that wisdom requires that we exercise care and creativity in devising a strategy to navigate a course that maximizes the achievement of both of these apparently conflicting goals.

A complex situation requires a complex approach. Simply plowing ahead as if one part of the complex picture were all there is, or as if there were no important interrelationships among the parts, is not adequate to the challenge we face as we confront the many-dimensional brokenness of the nation the Bushites have left behind.

Just what the optimal strategy might be for dealing with the Bushites crimes without lapsing back into a destructive divisiveness, I don’t know. But here, for at least illustrative purposes, are few possible ingredients in that optimal approach:

** The more that Americans can be helped to understand what “the rule of law” requires of us, the less likely they’ll be to perceive the addressing of the Bushite crimes as “partisan” or “political.” The more that an educational campaign can help Americans see that dealing with these crimes is something that our Founders wanted us to do, the more able they’ll be to see the prosecution of those crimes as our patriotic duty.

** The impetus for dealing with these crimes should come from the grassroots and from the Congress. It is Obama’s leadership that needs to form the bridge to hold Americans together to our common purposes, and to be insulated from charges of divisiveness. So the most effective strategy likely would entail a process in which Obama is compelled and persuaded to acquiesce to a course of action to which he is reluctantly and publicly persuaded. (And as the effort to “persuade” Obama is publicly enacted, presumably the public, too, can be persuaded.)

** Depending on how successful those two components of the strategy are, it may be possible to prosecute the criminals from the Bushite regime, but the optimal strategy may involve accepting something short of that. It is possible that the best strategy for America, given all the values at stake and given the limitations in the American body politic, will involve investigation and exposure without going all the way to prosecution and punishment. On the other hand, it is also possible that a public exposition of these crimes would in itself move the body politic in such a way as to change the equation; in other words, a full public delineation of the crimes might turn out to be not a substitute for prosecution, but a necessary first step toward that ultimate outcome.

The terrain before us is complex. The best path to traverse remains to be discovered. The point to be understood at the outset, however, is that our ultimate goal is a holistic one. And therefore, so must be our strategy for achieving it.

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