Obama and Authority

Kathy G. has an interesting post up about Vincent Bugliosi's book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder." Her post inspired me to look up what Obama said about the prosecution of members of the Bush Administration. I found an Attytood post that said the opposite of what I remembered: Obama would prosecute the criminals in the White House.

The bottom line is that: Obama sent a clear signal that -- unlike impeachment, which he's ruled out and which now seems a practical impossibility -- he is at the least open to the possibility of investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House. To many, the information that waterboarding -- which the United States has considered torture and a violation of law in the past -- was openly planned out in the seat of American government is evidence enough to at least start asking some tough questions in January 2009.

But that's not what Obama said. Once again, some liberals are listening to Obama and hearing only what they want to hear. It's what we correctly accuse the other side of doing, but it was jarring to see this happen regarding Obama.

Obama states he wouldn't want to be seen as indulging in "partisan witch-hunts." If crimes have been comitted, though, he'll have the AG look into it. If? If? We clearly know they have broken the law, over and over. It's not a suspicion, it's a fact. But Obama needs to see if it's just bad policies, not law-breaking. He'll have someone look into it.

You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances.

Shredding the Constitution is not an exceptional circumstance?

Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it.

That statement, along with Obama's deep belief in both religious and political authority, make it clear that Obama will not be inclined to do anything to prosecute the Bush Administration. That's dreadful, but not as bad as us deliberately refusing to deal with unhappy reality. We cannot pressure Obama to restore the rule of law if he won't admit it's been broken, but worse, we leave ourselves utterly vulnerable to the vicissitudes of circumstance if we refuse to admit Obama is like any other politician of any other time. If we insist that he is better than he is out of a need to feel better about who we are, we will be just as blind as----K-Lo.

(**Shudder**)