Not Ready To Play Nice

Paul Krugman thinks we should prosecute the Bush Administration's crimes.

In fact, we’ve already seen this movie. During the Reagan years, the Iran-contra conspirators violated the Constitution in the name of national security. But the first President Bush pardoned the major malefactors, and when the White House finally changed hands the political and media establishment gave Bill Clinton the same advice it’s giving Mr. Obama: let sleeping scandals lie. Sure enough, the second Bush administration picked up right where the Iran-contra conspirators left off — which isn’t too surprising when you bear in mind that Mr. Bush actually hired some of those conspirators.

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we’ll guarantee that they will happen again.

Remember that some of these republicans go back as far as Watergate. Cheney was Ford's chief of staff. If they have not been punished for breaking the law, why would they stop?

Also the media is complicit in many of the acts of criminality. They do not want to bring this up. For many years the media cheered on Bush's lawlessness.