The Obama Justice Department has apparently decided that, since torture is not a crime (at least not anything deserving of prosecution), then concocting legal doctrines that unleashed torturers around the world is also no offense.
A Justice Department internal investigation has concluded that John Yoo and Jay Bybee were gulity only of “poor judgment” in their memos which brought the Middle Ages into the new Millennium.
The Washington Post notes: “The conclusion is likely to unsettle interest groups that have sought a reckoning for lawyers who made possible brutal interrogation, warrantless wiretapping and other Bush counterterrorism strategies.”
Perhaps the Washington Post believes that only special interests oppose torture????
Jim, I think that is pretty much what they believe. Whenever I’m debating someone who is a “major” party butt-monkey, if I use words like “principles” or “rule of law”, etc., I’m accused of being an unrealistic “extremist”. The favored word nowadays seems to be “pragmatic”.
Of course they don’t use “pragmatic” as it’s defined in any normal dictionary. “Pragmatic” doesn’t mean having the president’s ballprints on one’s chin. I think I’m pretty pragmatic; when you consider the amount of Federal crap I put up with, without resorting to violence, I don’t think I can be called “extreme” at all.
Helluva thing when “rule of law” becomes a trademark of extremists.
It is hard to see where all these coverups will end.
Jim, unfortunately it is not hard at all to see where these various coverups and absolutions of malign means and ends will end. It will end as it always does, in the ash heap of empire. The only unknown is whether or not the forces of institutional entropy will act precipitously or in a protracted manner. Given the general acceptance of brinksmanship and emergency as a way of life……desperation plays being equal and all, I’d hazard the guess that we will see more of the precipitous than we will of the pleasures in a languorous decline. Time moves quickly now for empire and so history is even more unforgiving of delusional stubbornness.
It could still turn around but obviously, nobody at the helm is at all interested in a productive reckoning.
… as long as they can keep up some residue of popularity until after the next election….