Ruth Marcus said, "No, no, no." Glenn Greenwald is, of course and to America's benefit, all over the unwillingness of the Washington elite to punish fellow members of their incestuous little club.
Marcus pays insincere lip service to the rule of law. Then, like the conservative caricature of a squishy liberal, she pronounces it all o.k. if the on-going crime syndicate that the Republican Party is will just promise not to do it again. But, in fact, she won't even extract that promise; she only assumes that the next set of punks and lawbreakers will learn from the complete lack of sanctions on their predecessors that the right thing to do is not to break the law of the land.
Let's review:
- Tricky Dick Nixon used his government to subvert freedom and democracy in the name of national security.
- Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon for his crimes.
- Ronald Reagan subverted the Constitution with Iran-Contra.
- George Bush was in the loop but issued the most transparent lies claiming that he hadn't been.
- Bush then pardoned Caspar Weinberger. Ollie North and John Poindexter got off on legal technicalities.
- Duhbya came into office, his regent a man who learned his dark craft in the Nixon White House, and took us to war on false pretenses. He also subverted the Constitution, the U.S. Code, and 200 years of common practice. Even more than Nixon, he did what he goddamn pleased and dared anyone to stop him. The Marcus-style Democrats failed utterly.
- Duhbya commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. Look for more pardons between now and January 20.
An observation or two:
- Any political system that is built on self-reinforcing elite courtiers, even one with the trappings of democracy, is not a government of laws.
- The choice between rehabilitation and punishment is a false choice. A just legal system must have both.
- The RICO law has low barriers to standing to bring a civil suit, but it's hard to assess a monetary value to liberty violated.
