What is to be done?

By Kathy G.

What are we going to do about these people?

By “these people” I mean the Bush administration. How are we as a nation going to come to terms with the crimes and abuses of this President and his cronies? You know, the illegal (by international standards) war they started. The torture. The spying on political enemies. The unlawful detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. The lying to Congress. The criminal negligence during Katrina. The outing of an undercover intelligence agent for petty political revenge. The politically motivated firings of state attorneys general U.S. attorneys. The clearly unconstitutional claims of executive power. The corrupt deals with war profiteer contractors in Iraq. And on and on and on, the whole sickening mess.

One thing I feel certain we ought to do is to impeach this assclown ASAP. I see no political downside to that one whatsoever.

But beyond that, I’m stuck. Bush, Cheney et al. certainly ought to have their sorry asses hauled before an international tribunal and be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity. But sadly -- na ga ha pen.

And have there ever been a President and Vice President more deserving of impeachment? But that probably won’t happen either, and I’m not sure it would even be politically productive. If successful, it would remove Bush and Cheney from office, which of course would be a blessing. But even impeachment and conviction would not necessarily establish a clear standard as to what are and are not acceptable actions by the chief executive. And what if, as seems likely, the effort to impeach failed?

I’m agnostic about the impeachment question (except for impeaching Gonzales, which to me is a no-brainer), but I believe it’s vital for the health of our democracy that Bush and company be held accountable in some meaningful way. Otherwise their behavior in office will set a horrible new precedent – “defining deviancy down” is the phrase, I believe. And next time out those sons of bitches will push the boundaries even further.

We’ve seen it happen in our lifetime. Every two-term Republican President we’ve had from Nixon on has provoked a constitutional crisis: Watergate, Iran-contra, and now the Bush scandals. We seem to have learned nothing from any of these crises – except that the Republicans have learned to be a lot smarter about covering up their crimes. Worse, you see the same people who were discredited in previous Republican criminal regimes coming back again and again. Karl Rove, for example, got his start as a teenage dirty trickster during the Nixon administration. Even people like John Poindexter and Elliot Abrams, who were convicted of crimes connected to the Iran-contra scandal, came back to serve in high-level positions in the Bush administration!

That is seriously fucked up. And I’m sickened by the idea of these bastards once again getting away with it. It reminds me of the lines from that great Watergate-era Bob Dylan song, “Hurricane” – “All the criminals in their coats and their ties / Are free to drink martinis, and watch the sun rise.” Jesus, what a bitter and depressing image. But you just know it’s going to happen.

And the Democrats, unfortunately, are not helping things. They haven’t exactly been profiles in courage on this issue, and that’s putting it mildly. I haven’t heard a single major Democratic presidential candidate even acknowledge that the Bush regime has provoked a constitutional crisis and that we need to find a way to resolve it. They seem as if they just desperately want this problem to disappear.

There is, however, an alternative to head-in-the-sand denial on the one hand, and impeachment on the other. In a post from a few weeks back that did not get nearly the attention it deserved, Mark Schmitt made a novel suggestion as to how we should deal with this mess: transitional justice, a process that would be modeled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Tribunal. He explains:

A post-Bush Truth Commission would have as its goal to discover as much as possible about the full range of conduct during the recent period, not only violations of law but other practices that had the effect of impeding democracy, and making recommendations about preventing them in the future, which might include everything from constitutional amendment to changes in oversight to suggestions for the press. The idea would be to find the boundaries within which democracy can work – lines which should not be crossed. The commission would not be empowered to indict anybody, but should be delegated subpoena power (this is legally complicated) along with a limited power to grant immunity to witnesses, as well as a complete commitment of cooperation from the next administration.

As they say, read the whole thing.

What do you all think? I’d be especially interested in hearing from anyone who has knowledge of or experience with transitional justice processes. What are the strengths and weaknesses of such a system? Would it be a good fit for the crimes and abuses of the Bush administration? What would the obstacles be to setting up such a commission and making sure it would be effective?

I’m dead serious about this. This is one of the most important conversations that those of us who care about the future of our democracy could be having.