Presidential Poison: His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama's Presi

[hokie4redskins]

Dangerous precedent.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124044375842145565.html

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

"Your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of 'chatter' equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks," wrote Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, in his August 1, 2002 memo. "In light of the information you believe [detainee Abu] Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an 'increased pressure phase.'"

So the CIA requests a legal review at a moment of heightened danger, the Justice Department obliges with an exceedingly detailed analysis of the law and interrogation practices -- and, seven years later, Mr. Obama says only the legal advisers who are no longer in government should be investigated. The political convenience of this distinction for Mr. Obama betrays its basic injustice. And by the way, everyone agrees that senior officials, including President Bush, approved these interrogations. Is this President going to put his predecessor in the dock too?

Mr. Obama seemed to understand the peril of such an exercise when he said, before his inauguration, that he wanted to "look forward" and beyond the antiterror debates of the Bush years. As recently as Sunday, Rahm Emanuel said no prosecutions were contemplated and now is not a time for "anger and retribution." Two days later the President disavowed his own chief of staff. Yet nothing had changed except that Mr. Obama's decision last week to release the interrogation memos unleashed a revenge lust on the political left that he refuses to resist.

Just as with the AIG bonuses, he is trying to co-opt his left-wing base by playing to it -- only to encourage it more. Within hours of Mr. Obama's Tuesday comments, Senator Carl Levin piled on with his own accusatory Intelligence Committee report. The demands for a "special counsel" at Justice and a Congressional show trial are louder than ever, and both Europe's left and the U.N. are signaling their desire to file their own charges against former U.S. officials.

[KAOSkins]

The Clinton Impeachment can be marked down as the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended.

[KAOSkins]

I thought it was during the Nixon then Ronald Reagan Administrations

You know, we could probably go back a loooong way. But I don't want to play. OLS

[Cdowwe]

It probably started when George Washington left office.

I have a feeling if he does this, then in 4 or 8 years the next Prez (if its Republican) will just go after his officials. And so on, forever.

[DeanCollins]

I thought it was during the Nixon then Ronald Reagan Administrations

You're comparing Clinton's bj to Nixon spying on the opposing party via breaking an entering, wire taps etc...?

[Larry]

Admiring the way in which a President announcing that he thinks it's appropriate to determine whether the Constitution was intentionally violated is a "policy dispute".

And the way such legal reasoning as stating that if military personnel were caught doing what the President told them to do, that claiming that they were motivated by a desire to protect the country would probably be sufficient to prevent criminal convictions, but advising the President that he should consider publicly announcing that he was abandoning the Geneva Conventions, to avoid possible war crimes trials, was "Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials".

[PeterMP]

I actually think a lot of people are wrong on this. I think it would actually appeal to a lot of right leaning moderates who think our laws accorss the board (from Nixon to Reagan to Clinton) have been ignored and cast aside for to long.

[Midnight Judges]

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended.

Awww darn. And I was totally looking forward to all that bipartisanship from hokie4redskins and all the Republicans on the Wall Street Journal editorial page.

[Larry]

Actually, I used to think that maybe it would be a good thing if every President knew that his successor would be "auditing the books" ,desperately looking for some way to smear him, after he left.

But then it just occurred to me that all that would do is cause the politicians to go ever further in deliberately avoiding any trace of evidence than they already do.

For example, we've already seen two different administrations setting up covert email systems so that their members can conspire, deniably. They did this when they started up, in anticipation of dodging justice.

I think it's simply more likely that, if it became SOP for politicians to be subject to review after leaving, then they'll simply create some system of being dirty while hiding all evidence.