John Yoo and Jay Bybee helped their boss, President George W. Bush, evade laws against torture, and now they’ll be evading responsibility themselves. Yoo and Bybee are going to be let off the hook.
It’s a reminder of how much went wrong under George W. Bush, and how little reckoning there has been for it. With all of the serious crimes of the Bush White House, there has been no legal punishment of any high officials involved.
There hasn’t been much honesty about the problems either. Torture, massive spying, arbitrary detention, and deception in the creation of the Iraq War all have been swept under the rug. Bush and Cheney have never been asked to testify under oath. There has been no comprehensive congressional investigation.
All that, we were told when Barack Obama entered the White House, would be divisive. If we just avoided looking at these crimes, we were told, then Republicans and Democrats could come together to work on America’s problems.
We see how well that worked, with Obama spending most of the State of the Union Address begging Republicans to stop being so mean to him.
The “looking forward” idea, rather than confronting the abuse of government, is the reason basically nothing has changed. If the Democrats were the ones doing the abuse (as is now being shouted by the Rethuglicans, ie. fiscal abuse) they’d haul everyone into court and “prosecute the shit out of them.” Obama, trying to “play nice” with his bi-partisan approach, has begun to “get it” that they don’t care and only want power by any means necessary (and when they get it – watch out), and therefore won’t cooperate and will try to bring him (and his party or any member of it) down as often as possible. They truly are wealthy, powerful, soul-less and despicable morons.
yeah, but did you see obama go down into the lions den on CNN the other day. i don’t know what will come of it , but, it was great television.
Yeah! He went down into the Lion’s Den, and said he’d support clean coal! And bring some more meat for the lions!
Glen Greenwald on antiwar radio today.