We Must Uphold the Rule of Law

Friday, April 24th, 2009 by Bill Swadley.

As the horrific Bush Administration torture strategy continues to unravel and reveal, and I listen to the talking heads splitting hairs about what is and what isn’t torture and/or whether torture was justified and/or “yielded results,” I can’t help but hearken-back to the endless days I spent listening to the Clinton impeachment hearings as the strident and self-righteous Henry Hyde repeated, ad –nauseam, that the president must be impeached for perjury and other “high crimes” because, above all else, WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW!

Remember that? Remember the crime for which Clinton was impeached? Perjury. Bill Clinton was only the second president in US history to be impeached and it was for a crime completely unrelated to the office he held. The Republican-led House of Representatives tried to throw Clinton out of office for lying about having sex with Monica Lewinsky. That was it. No one was tortured, no wars were started needlessly , no one died. Even so, the entire country was put on hold while the right-wing played-out its righteous indignation. And let’s not forget the Starr investigation.

Now here we are, 10 years later, and  Bush, Cheney, et al have managed to escape Washington with nary an official accusation of any kind  leveled against them. We all knew that during the 8-years of Bush rule the Executive Branch was riding roughshod over human rights and the constitution. It’s no longer a question of whether they acted in accordance with the law. The memos and reports just now surfacing show that they not only side-stepped the law but intentionally diverted it. No one in this country, not even certain Fox News “journalists” can deny that they authorized the widespread use of torture on detainees at various U.S. run prison facilities around the world.

Is that enough or must we get Bush in a courtroom charged with littering and catch him lying about whether the gum wrapper was Juicy Fruit or Double Mint?

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, and anyone else in the Bush Administration involved in the promotion and authorization of torture must be held accountable. There needs to be a full investigation. Charges need to be filed. Public trials need to be held. We need to redeem ourselves for ourselves, for our children, and in the eyes of the world as a nation that believes in its own principles.

Henry Hyde has passed-on,  so I’ll say it for him: WE MUST UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW.

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