The video of David Addington's "testimony" in front of the House judiciary committee is pretty gruesome. There was definitely a time when someone who acted so contemptuously of the ruler or ruling body of a large country would have their head put on a spike and publicly displayed. I'm not saying that would be appropriate for Addington, Yoo, former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre, Bradley Schlozman, Alberto Gonzalez, or any of the dozens of Bush apparatchiks who either refused to answer questions or outright perjured themselves before Congress, but it has a certain appeal... You could space them evenly around 495...
At a minimum, our non-medieval laws provide for those people going to jail. These are prosecutable crimes. But the perpetrators have absolutely no reason to fear any repercussions beyond a sternly worded letter from Patrick Leahy. And if they scoff at that, they'll get another one just like it in a couple months.
It's not purely my opposition to the policies these morons implemented that makes me wish there were (not necessarily beheading-oriented) real disincentives to lie in front of Congress. It's that the president of the United States is scary-powerful enough without being free of any meaningful Congressional oversight whatsoever.
As things stand now, the reason Harriet Miers and Karl Rove got to disregard subpoenas is because President Bush says they don't have to. They're in contempt or something, but Rove's on television every night, and he doesn't look anxious, so I guess everything's cool.
Anyway here's Addington:
Posts
The UnWise Men Who Need Correction
20 hours ago
No comments:
Post a Comment