Polite Society Ain't Bush Country Posted by Adam Blickstein

Richard Clarke was sharp last night on Countdown. Besides promoting his excellent new book, Your Government Failed You, he also discussed the Senate Intelligence Committee Report released yesterday that documented the Administration's public misrepresentation and exaggeration of intelligence in the run-up to war. I found this exchange most interesting:

OLBERMANN: Democrats, probably the Democrats today, said impeachment was not a remedy to this. But can anybody argue with a straight face, post-Lewinsky, that these lies, the blood and treasure that they cost us, don`t demand some kind of remedy? Is there some other kind of remedy?

CLARKE: There may be some other kind of remedy. There may be some sort of truth and reconciliation commission process that`s been tried in other countries, like South Africa, el Salvador and what not, where if you come forward and admit that you were in error, admit that you lied, admit that you did something, then you`re forgiven. Otherwise, you are censured in some way.

I just don`t think we can let these people back into polite society and give them jobs on university boards and corporate boards and just let - - pretend that nothing ever happened when there are 4,000 American dead and 25,000 Americans grievously wounded. And they will carry those wounds and suffer all the rest of their lives. Someone should have to pay in some way for the decisions that they made to mislead the American people.

In a vacuum, the compendium of mistakes, misappropriations of power, abrogation of the constitution, and general recklessness of the Administration might demand strong punishment, such as impeachment. But in the current political reality, this will never happen even if it should.  Short of this, as Clarke pointedly suggests, none of these guys should have any elevated positions in academia, private business or the public sector. Just ask John Yoo or Doug Feith. The author of Bush's torture policy is having a very very hard time at Berkeley Law School while the architect of the Iraq war recently failed to have his teaching contract renewed at Georgetown Law due to faculty protests. 

There might be outlets for folks like these, say Pat Robertson's Regent University School of Law, but when it comes to polite society, as Clarke suggests, they should be forced to stay away.

Comments

[Don Bacon]

In The Chimp's defense, we unfortunately live in a country where adultery is a sin and the state's murder of foreigners isn't. Olberman's problem with Iraq is "the blood and treasure that they [lies] cost US." Historically it's gone on since the French and Indian Wars, through the Wars with Mexico and Spain, in the Philippines and in a hundred other places. In fact, the killing of foreigners by our valiant warriors is viewed as a popular noble cause, until it fails, and only then do we talk about the cost to US.

The Bush administration was, in this sense, the right cabal at the right time, a logical extension of the Carter Doctrine and the Iraq Liberation Act, which if you recall were imperialistic Democratic instruments. Presently we have two new contending future Deciders threatening to bomb Iran, a country of decent people who have done nothing wrong.

Yes, in foreign affairs the Bush administration amplified our country's faults but it didn't create our basic wrongness, and it's not over. Now we have new lies, much like the last ones actually, which have been embraced by McCain and Obama. Read Obama's speech to AIPAC. It's all in there, all the lies about Iran.

[Bush is Ossama]

I think if we used a standard similar to what was used against Sadam the problem would be well solved. After all if that was justice for his crimes it would certainly be apropriote for our little bush.

I read in the news that Isreal may be the spear point in the iligitamate attacks upcomming against Iran. Perhaps our plate of is currently to full of war crimes...

[Ken McAllister]

Just a small correction, but a very important one from our standpoint. Pat Robertson's school is Regent University, not Regent College as stated in Adam Blickstein's comment. Regent College is located in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and we have no affiliation with Pat Robertson or Regent University.

[Adam Blickstein]

Ken-Duly noted and the post has been corrected. Apologies for the error!

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