While Nixon protested that “It’s not against the law if the President does it,” he was forced to resign or face certain impeachment because of his violating the law and breaking the rules against spying on the other party.
Bush and Cheney have not only been caught red-handed breaking the law and lying about it, they have not only been caught spying on the Democratic Party, they have been caught spying on everyone, caught torturing people and caught red-handed lying about the reasons for their war on Iraq and virtually everything else that they have done. They have admitted doing these illegal things as well, although Bush continues to claim a meaningless distinction between torture and “alternative interrogation techniques.”
What Obama does in his first 100 days, in other words, will prove momentous not because he is the first African-American US president, but because if he fails to prosecute these world class criminals, then he dooms the country to continue along the path that began with Reagan: no measure, no matter how barbaric or illegal,l will be banned from being carried out in the interests of the Janus-faced Empire with its Republican Head and its Democratic Head. At best, Obama’s term(s) will be an interregnum, a pause and readjustment. Palin and others like her – Christian Fascists who have no truck with niceties like the law and civil liberties - wait in the wings for their chance in the White House. Reverend Rick Warren, who likens gays to pedophiles and those who have sex with animals, will stand a few feet from our new president on Tuesday, delivering the invocation for this new administration.
As the World Can’t Wait’s 2005 Call put it, addressing the American people:
“That which you do not resist and mobilize to stop you will learn — or be forced — to accept.”
The stakes here cannot be overstated. Obama must not be allowed to sweep these terrible crimes and monstrous precedents under the rug. The Bush Regime must be prosecuted for their crimes. If Obama continues to try to finesse this responsibility, then his legacy will be even worse than that of Bush and Cheney because he was the one who had the task of holding tyranny to account and he refused to do it.
If the American people don’t stand up and demand that Obama do what must be done, then we will have failed and history will judge us exceedingly harshly – as well it should.
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