I think we are all used to the notion that there are monsters among us: Charles Krauthammer is as divorced from both morality and reality as one could possibly be, which is precisely why he continues to retain supposedly respectable venues for his scribblings long after every one of his prognostications has proven to be as wrong as his arguments are corrupt. It is another thing, though, to find the stomach to accept that indeed, an even share of our supposed greatest minds truly find any of this to be a quandry. Can we follow this law, if important people violated it? Or would asking that our laws be followed even by the powerful be -- shudder -- vengeful?
Mora says, as cited by Hunt, that prosecutions of political elites would "tear the country apart." It is astonishing how well-travelled that particular canard is. It made it from the age of Nixon to our present day with surprisingly little wear and tear, so carefully has it been tended to by our political betters (mostly the same tenders now as then, uncannily enough.)
But again, what is the greater danger to a nation: that the law be applied to the politically powerful, or that the politically powerful be declared immune from inconvenient laws? Is this truly something worth pondering? Is there any bulb so dim, in our political string of lights, to honestly, genuinely believe that this country cannot stomach abiding by the laws it sets out for itself?
It seems an argument that could only spring from insipid cowardice. The author of the "tear our country apart" argument is saying, by proxy, that they themselves cannot bear to see the law applied in a particular case, and fear chaos because they naturally assume the rest of the nation is as corrupt as they are, or as enamored with the privileged as the privileged themselves are. I think neither is likely to be the case, but I am fairly certain that a continued history of immunity from the consequences from their actions would be a corrupting influence.
I am honestly not sure what else could possibly be said. Last week saw President Obama state, directly: "I believe waterboarding is torture." He need not have put the qualifier, "I believe," because waterboarding has been considered torture since long, long before we currently pretended at a debate about such a thing. Torture is a violation of both American and international law.
That should be the last words on the subject from the president's mouth: from here we should expect to see not a "truth commission", or a "blue-ribbon panel", or any of the other vacuous approximations of justice that are hastily constructed when something abominable is done by somebody too significant to be merely judged by the standards and laws held out for every last one of the rest of us, but a criminal investigation that uncovers what was done, how it was done, and who did it.
The entire post is well worth reading.
