| Is the Bush administration really considering pre-emptive pardons? Conservative jurists hope so, wanting Bush to head off any impending investigation of illegal government activities during the Bush years by a future administration.
The money quote:
"The president should pre-empt any long-term investigations," said Victoria Toensing, who was a Justice Department counterterrorism official in the Reagan administration. "If we don't protect these people who are proceeding in good faith, no one will ever take chances."
Sounds a lot like the Nuremberg Defense, eh? Yes, I'm aware of Godwin's Law - but we're talking about a government that was involved in illegal spying, illegal detention, torture, and kidnapping, and that reintroduced pre-emptive war to the world. At this point, we're entering a rarified arena and running out of suitable analogies. Is Pinochet a better comparison? South Africa's Apartheid state? Brezhnev?
And who here thinks the pardons will be for the regular joe spooks and other agents in the trenches? Me, neither. We've seen from the Abu Ghraib fallout how the administration rolls: throw the little guy under the bus while dodging any and all accountability.
The point here, the idea of pre-emptive pardons is odious. I don't want the government to "take chances" with my civil liberties. I want them to stay within the law, and I want accountability for those that don't, regardless of rank or station. |
