With the Iowa caucuses rapidly approaching, Washington is embroiled in a new scandal from the first term of the Bush administration. Namely, the Village is going to have to grapple with the issue of torture. There is no question that this debate doesn’t reflect well on either party, nor on the Washington Establishment. And that is fine by me. The last thing I want is for voters to go to the polls thinking there is anything in Washington worth salvaging. There isn’t.
But, quite naturally, my view is not going to be shared by the people that are actually in Washington. They are going to try to figure out a way out of this dilemma. They have failed the nation in nearly every regard since the first plane flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. And if the Democrats have mostly incurred blame for cowardice, it should surprise no one that with cowardice comes a certain level of complicity. The Republicans wanted to torture people. The Democrats didn’t want to get called soft on torturing people.
Now we have a great big mess with Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib, and renditions, and torture, and obstruction of justice, and contempt of Congress, and so on.
Frankly, the best solution would probably be for Bush to come clean on what he authorized and throw himself on the mercy of the electorate. He could just say that he went too far in an excess of caution, and that the buck stops with him. We could probably forgive him…at least we could forego impeaching him or prosecuting the people that followed his orders.
We might even tolerate some extensive pardons. But that is very unlikely to happen. And if the president is not going to accept blame and responsibility, we have little choice but to treat his crimes as crimes. Torture is, after all, a war crime. It’s illegal, as is destroying evidence and lying to federal prosecutors and judges. I know the Village desperately wants to avoid holding people to account for these crimes, but we have a little thing called the rule of law and people’s rights. We can’t just jettison them because they make us feel bad about ourselves.
I know Watergate made us look bad…at first. But in the longer view it was probably the finest example of the American system working correctly in our history. In the long view, it was a shining example for the world. Did the Village want to go through that at the time? No. It was mortifying.
The one thing I am pretty sure of? This scandal is going to help the Washington outsiders in the primaries.
I know Watergate made us look bad…at first.
One of the things Watergate did was actually push the Soviet Union towards dissolution. The Soviet elites, not understanding what Watergate was TRULY about, used it to show how corrupt and weak the American government was in their propaganda.
But what actually happened was the average Joe in the Soviet Union thought the U.S. would collapse and when it didn’t, when a corrupt LEADER was replaced peacefully (and TRANSPARENTLY) without the entire system being destroyed, it started opening their eyes that the democratic process was actually a viable option.
I’m sure it had an equally inspirational effect on millions of other people around the globe, including Americans.
Why this is such a hard thing to learn for the “Village”, I have no idea. But they’re turning into the Soviet Union as fast as they possibly can, churning out positive propaganda to reinforce the state is always right and sweeping everything uncomfortable under the rug because the masses are “too stupid” to handle the truth.
Pax
Why this is such a hard thing to learn for the “Village”, I have no idea.
Because the Villagers don’t care. The best analogy to describe the Villagers is the “popular” clique in your average High School. There are people who are “in”, people who are “out” and people who toady enough to the folks who are “in” to be allowed to hang around with the “in” crowd.
Politics as we think of it doesn’t enter into the equation – the politics at work are the purely personal politics of who is friends with whom, who throws the best parties, and who’s telling the best stories.
But they’re turning into the Soviet Union as fast as they possibly can, churning out positive propaganda to reinforce the state is always right and sweeping everything uncomfortable under the rug because the masses are “too stupid” to handle the truth.
Less Soviet Union, more courtiers in the court of Louis the XV, but essentially correct. The Villagers are not average people like you and me – they are elites. They are priveleged. They hang out with the movers and the shakers of the day and get invited to all of the best parties. And any negative story pissed off the royalty and cuts of the courtier from the party.
The Dems don’t seem to have figured this out – they seem to want the journalists to like them. Which is stupid – it makes them toadies to the journalists while the journalists are busy toadying to the Republican pols. The Republicans don’t really care if the journos like them or not – which is how the popular kid/toady dynamic works. Top that off with the fact that the journos in DC ARE elites and you have a system built for maintaining and expanding power for the elites.
Which is why even a “throw the bums out” wave of political upheaval probably isn’t going to be enough. The new guys need to understand how the DC press corpse works and work to cut it off at the knees. Otherwise we’ll get four more years like the Clinton years or, gods help us, four more years like the Carter years.
This scandal is going to help the Washington outsiders in the primaries.
Too bad there aren’t any outsiders running for the Dem nomination. It’s nothing but current and former members of Congress, all of whom — with the exception of the thoroughly unelectable Dennis Kucinich — have blood on their hands one way or another.
GREAT POST! I do think however that you could have left out the frankly nonsense. It is way too late for the chimp to prostrate himself before the citizenry. He has gone way too far. Yup to the pardons(maybe) But otherwise, you have presented a brilliant post.
Addendum: and now this. Congressional comittees are going to hear from clayton today!!!! BUT GUESS WHAT! BEHIND CLOSED DOORS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why the fuck bother? Its is just a gaddamned joke. And if anyone can show me that there is anyone running next year is willing to state for the record that they want to stop the crap PLEASE tell me who it is!
Until then, This old fart ain’t voting! Screw them all.
When Jane Harman is the sole voice of reason…wow, just wow.
So is this part of the bad blood w/ Pelosi? Is this why Pelosi made sure Harman wasn’t chair?
Just putting that out there…